The regional head of Britain's largest shooting organisation last night dismissed video footage claiming to show cruelty on game bird estates across the Midlands as "a load of old rubbish".
Carl Cox, regional director of the British Association of Shooting and Conservation, said scenes apparently showing poor standards on estates across the country, filmed by the League of Cruel Sports, were unreliable representations as no prosecutions had come as a result.
The 15-minute documentary, named The Killing Game: The Truth About Gamebird
Shooting and featuring footage shot by investigators over the last 18 months, will be sent next week to MPs across the country.
Some of the footage purports to show predators on part of the Earl of Lichfield's Ranton Abbey estate snared in a manner that contravened the code of practice for use of the device.
It also claims buzzards - a protected species - were poisoned on the Huddington Estate in Worcestershire, after campaigners performed a post mortem.
A spokeswoman for the League said the footage demonstrated how the commercial shooting industry was "far removed" from its image of a rural pastime in harmony with the environment.
Allegedly "shoddy" standards in the battery cage breeding of pheasants and partridges and the control of natural predators such as foxes and birds of prey, are some of the main practices highlighted by the video.
There are 2,000 centres in the UK where people can go to shoot game birds with about 10 million game birds bred every year for the sport.
"The video highlights the use of barren battery cages, which the EU is banning for breeding hens but will remain legal for game birds," said the video's producer, Anne Holmes.
"People will be quite horrified to discover that most of the pheasants they see on the sides of roads are not wild but intensively reared to be used as live targets for commercial shoots. In battery cages they peck and cannibalise each other. Less than 40 per cent of game birds are then shot - it's an incredible wastage."
She said predator control measures such as snares were indiscriminate and on many estates were found to contravene the shooting industry's code of practice in where they were placed and how they were maintained. Many animals, including badgers and cats, suffered lingering deaths such as strangulation, she added.
Mr Cox said the League had "brought nothing new to the table for discussion or debate on countryside matters".
"The standard of rearing gamebirds is the highest in the world," said Mr Cox. "These are exaggerated claims that prove nothing".
