Lanark MP backs ban on 'merciless cruelty' cages

She was one of 105 MPs who signed up to an Early Day Motion in the UK Parliament to make the practive of cramming up to ten female pheasants with one male in a cage illgeal. The resulting chicks are sold to country estates to become targets for shooting parties.

The MP has given her backing to the charity Animal Aid which has carried out a decade-long fight against the caging.

Said its campaign manager Fiona Pereira: “Anyone who watches our undercover footage will be able to see how much these poor birds are suffering. The huge farms on which they are incarcerated rely on the birds being far away from the public gaze but we fully intend to keep showing people what is really going on.

“To keep any bird in a cage is appallingly cruel - but then to steal their eggs and sell the hatched babies to shooting estates, where they will be gunned down for nothing more than sport is unspeakably merciless.”

Animal Aid claim that it has repeatedly uncovered cruelty to birds and reported it to the police but claim that charges seldom, if ever, follow.

They call for a specific law imposing an outright ban.