Editor

I am writing to express my concerns about the commercialscale pheasant shoot in Cwmrhaidr, Glaspwl.

I alongside hundreds of others are determined to stop any damage to this globally important habitat, with nearby Cwm Llyfnant SSSI and Pen Creigiau’r Llan SSSI.

Alongside the concerns for the wildlife in SSSI designated sites, I am particularly worried about the potential for a sharp increase in Lyme disease in the area and the threat this poses to humans that live and work in the valley, as well as other living beings in the natural environment.

Pheasants, sheep, and wild mammals carry ticks, but pheasants alone carry the primary bacteria that cause Lyme disease in humans in the UK. They pass it on to the ticks, who in turn can pass it to the human host.

Left untreated (and it is often undetected) Lyme disease can lead to chronic fatigue, arthritis, damage to kidney, nervous system and heart in humans and some animals.

“Without artificial rearing of pheasants it would almost certainly disappear from the UK within a year,” according to Klaus Kurtenbach, Oxford University Tick Research Group.

Lyme’s disease is rising in the UK. Thousands of gamebirds carrying parasites and disease into the valley - yet another reason why an industrial scale pheasant shoot is bad for the area.

Rosie Strang Machynlleth

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