Ghoulish killers
Sir: Andrew Kenny ('Why murder is wrong', 13 May) underlines the cruelty inherent in the slaughtering of animals. A few days ago, at the Kidepo game park on the Uganda-Sudan border (which, by the way, has been brutally stripped of most of its animals by soldiers and poachers), a sleek, black goat was led into our mess tent and a boy slit its throat with a sharp knife. The only sound the goat made was a small squeak. Its blood was drained into a bowl and we cooked it on a wood fire. It tasted good. A jackal was waiting in the shadows to eat up the remains. The whole operation was carried out so efficiently that the ele- ment of 'cruelty' didn't enter into it. Next morning we came across two lions with their cubs eating their kill (a buffalo). It was the silent scavengers — the row of bedraggled vultures and the witch-like marabou storks waiting to snatch scraps — who were the ghouls.
Denis Hills
12 Kilmorey Gardens, Twickenham
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