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Wildfowling - media twists trip to the foreshore

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By Joe Dimbleby

Wednesday, 07 December 2011

A Daily Mail article spins the story of an educational school trip into one of a schoolchild traumatised by duck shooting

In a piece of cynical sensationalism the Daily Mail last week spun a positive story of an educational school trip for 10-year-olds into an anti-shooting article. The piece, which appeared under the headline Primary school pupils go home from trip in tears after teacher takes them to see ducks being blasted out of the sky, described what was in reality a trip to see the conservation work done by Ely and District Wildfowlers’ Association and to witness an evening flight.

The article was based on a complaint from one parent, Ray Poolman, 49, who said his daughter came home in tears after the outing. He was quoted in the newspaper as saying: I was absolutely unaware that it was a shoot, otherwise she wouldn’t have been there. There’s no way it’s an educational trip. It shouldn’t have been arranged by teachers in school time. I can’t believe they put children in that environment. What if something had gone wrong? They allowed children to witness the death of an animal.

However Shirley Stapleton, headmistress of Ashbeach Primary School in Ramsey St Mary’s, Cambridgeshire, said parents were made aware that the trip would involve wildfowling and all signed permission slips. She added: All the children indicated at the end of the visit that they had thoroughly enjoyed it.

The rest of this article appears in the 7th December issue of Shooting Times.

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