By Yvonne Taylor, Manager of corporate projects, Peta

NO-ONE should have been surprised by the outcry that greeted the Prime Minister’s (subsequently abandoned) pledge to let MPs vote on lifting the ban on fox hunting in England.

Chasing terrified foxes, often to death, on horseback and with packs of yowling hounds, isn’t just cruel; it is the antithesis of “sport”.

The Glorious 12th, the start of red grouse shooting season on Saturday, elicits the same reaction. Last year, more than 123,000 people signed a petition calling for it to be stopped, and for the same reason: masquerading as sports people, a small group of bullies with guns gathers on the moorlands to slaughter red grouse for a twisted sense of “fun”.

People with guns prowl the moors and shoot the birds after “beaters” flush them out of the heather towards their killers, who pay nearly £3,000 a day to flaunt their cruel folly. Before the bloodletting ends in December, hundreds of thousands of grouse will die (some 700,000 were slaughtered three years ago) .

The owners of estates where the massacres are held earn about £180 for each pair of gunned-down birds, which are decapitated, disembowelled, and served (sometimes for as much as £70 a plate) at London restaurants. Others are discarded or used to bait traps.

Falcons, hawks, owls, and other protected raptors that are the grouse’s natural predators are shot, trapped, or poisoned, or their nests are destroyed, to ensure that the idle rich get their money’s worth.

Last year, a grouse gamekeeper in Yorkshire received a police caution after admitting setting three pole traps, used to target birds of prey. In 2015, a Dumfries gamekeeper was convicted for throwing rocks at a buzzard and stamping repeatedly on the bird, a vile incident described as “sickeningly violent”. A recent government report found that one-third of Scotland’s tagged golden eagles have been killed under “suspicious circumstances connected with records of illegal persecution”, mostly on or near grouse moors.

Last month, a gamekeeper at Peak District National Park was captured on video over a badger caught in a trap. Rather than ending the animal’s suffering, he shot at the trap, abandoning the badger to a slow, agonising death. Other footage showed a man killing a trapped fox then dumping the body over a wall.

The Hunt Investigation Team said this happened on an industrial scale to protect grouse destined to be shot. You and I also pay dearly so that a few callous people can dupe themselves into believing they’re brilliant hunters.

Grouse feed on fresh, young heather shoots and, to speed up growth, moor managers burn the moors – a reckless, environmentally unsound practise that exposes carbon-rich peat.

When the peat is degraded, its carbon stores decompose and carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas responsible for climate change, is released into the atmosphere, poisoning it.

According to the Committee on Climate Change, upland peat emits some 350,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, most of it – 260,000 tonnes – traceable to burning on grouse moors. How much more inglorious can you get?

When left in peace, male grouse announce their presence to hens by drumming with their wings and engaging in an elaborate courtship dance mimicked in folk dances in North America and the Alps.

Females build the nest but both parents share responsibility for feeding their chicks. Before they’re two weeks old, young grouse can fly. These remarkable birds are living beings, not targets to blast out of the sky. Leave the grouse alone.