SO COUN Blanchard is now turning his big guns on performing budgies in circuses (Animal show parks review, The Press, August 8).

It appears the council may now be obliged to spend hours discussing both budgies and foie gras. Is there nothing else in York that needs doing?

Some believe the foie gras story was force-fed him by a Labour Government keen to be seen to be serious about animal welfare, without actually doing anything about animal welfare.

I imagine that, having already persuaded television to put him on a show to comment on the silly things councils do, he is hoping that he will be invited again, this time as both story and critic.

That he should abuse defenceless animals by using them for the purposes of self-publicity is one thing; that the media should continuously fall for his pranks is quite another.

Before he does it, therefore, I propose a Blanchard animal welfare issue of my own. To get it out of the way.

I think people who encourage worms to enter their compost heaps, or do not actively discourage them from doing so, should be cautioned for promoting animal servitude.

There are serious animal welfare issues in our country. For example, millions of ducks slaughtered at eight weeks old, without ever having access to a natural habitat.

Hundreds of millions of chickens, which have their beaks cut off to prevent them injuring each other in their brief six-week lives holed up in battery cages.

Our own UK Egg Marketing Board is currently challenging the EU legislation that is due to outlaw battery farming in 2012.

Those are animal welfare issues. But don't let reality get in the way of silly stories.

Coun Christian Vassie, Blake Court, Wheldrake, York.