SO James Stephenson believes that “the time has come to let people who live and earn their living in the countryside, decide how it should in the main be run” (Gazette & Herald, April 6).

Five pages further on in the same paper we find the headline Police in warning to goshawk killers.

This is precisely what happens when the running of the countryside is left to those that think they know best.

Three protected goshawks found shot or poisoned in the last two years, simply because landowners and gamekeepers see them as a threat to gamebirds.

And what do the landowners and gamekeepers do with gamebirds? Why, they blast them out of the sky in their thousands for entertainment.

I know which species I believe has a greater call on the occasional gamebird to supplement its diet.

Tommy Woodward, Pickering