AS well as causing suffering to fish - who have long been scientifically proven to experience pain - fishing also harms other wildlife which is injured and killed by tackle.

Consequently, many local authorities and landowners have introduced fishing bans.

Angling on the lake at York University has caused countless wildfowl amputations and strangulations down the years. Last summer a university environmental group collected more than 1,300 signatures from students and staff asking the vice-chancellor to ban fishing.

Despite this being the best supported campaign ever on campus, the vice-chancellor refused to grant even a two-minute meeting for the petition to be handed over.

More than a year ago the head of management promised to look into the issue then write back to the petition organisers with a decision.

He must be looking into the issue very thoroughly, because he still hasn't written.

As with its disgraceful refusal to reply to JB Morrell's grandson, the university management is clearly far too busy to bother with little things such as manners and decency.

Now, on its new campus, the university is planning to construct a new lake for its ducks and swans on which to get strangled.

If the university was to establish a woodland park on that land this would compensate for the environmental damage the new campus will cause.

It would also offer far more to visitors and the local community than yet another stretch of lake and would be better for wildlife.

If the university is determined to continue with its strange lake-building obsession why doesn't it live up to its biodiversity mission-statements by taking responsibility for its wildlife, and making the new lake a no-fishing zone?

Mark Dale,

Hull Road,

York.

Updated: 11:23 Wednesday, August 18, 2004