I AM at a loss to understand the wholesale slaughter of sheep that are not infected, nor have been in contact with foot and mouth disease.

Surely it would have been possible to slaughter only those animals which were badly affected and to bury those on the farms and to isolate the other animals for three weeks or so in case the disease spread or badly affected the others?

To slaughter sheep which are free from the disease (and not to use the carcasses even for animal feed) within a three kilometre area around the main sources of infection seems to be excessive especially when there is no guarantee that this will work and outbreaks now seem to be occurring at distances of 30 miles or so with apparently no contacts.

If this disease is airborne and can be carried by anything and anyone, then what happens about the birds - the hawks, owls, crows, lapwings etc that live in those areas, and mammals such as rabbits, stoats and foxes? Presumably these are carriers of the disease too. Do these also have to be killed in order that this disease is contained - and if so how would that be done?

The pyres that have lit up the countryside are burning carcasses that have been left for days - yet we are given to understand that the disease is carried by live animals, dead animals, chilled meats, cooked and dried meats, so why have these animals been slaughtered when there were no facilities to dispose of the carcasses - and should they have been burnt to ashes polluting the air with smoke and debris and could this actually spread the disease?

The slaughter now of healthy stock seems pointless and there is no guarantee that this will be the solution.

Louise Corrigan,

Mulberry Court,

Huntington,

York.

Updated: 10:46 Wednesday, April 11, 2001