Dear Sirs,

I write to offer my warmest congratulations on Alexia James’s splendidly clear-eyed article, “Bison in Blean? A £1.45M Vanity Project in the Woods”. At last, someone has had the courage to say what every sensible countryman has been muttering into his pint: that a fenced wood full of foreign megafauna proves nothing except that a little money and less logic makes for a grand spectacle.

Ms James is entirely correct that the same effect could be had with native cattle, a chainsaw, and a few quiet afternoons. But I write not merely to applaud, but to add a detail that will, I think, raise the hackles of every right-thinking reader.

I happen to have the stalking rights on the land immediately surrounding Blean Woods. I also possess a rifle of a calibre more than suitable for the humane dispatch of a European bison. The owner of that surrounding land and I have a quiet understanding: should one of those beasts be found on his side of the fence, he will telephone me without delay, and he will follow behind with a telehandler. “We’ll have that bugger away before they know it’s out!” were his exact words.

And here is the truly rich part. The near-£2m fencing – the only thing keeping these dangerous animals from the public – was installed using McVeigh Parker’s “Clipex” or “Triplex” patent system. It is, I am told, patently unsuitable for containing a determined bison, and remarkably susceptible to damage from falling trees. Of which there are a great many.

So we live in hope. It may be fanciful, of course. But if I am ever called upon to execute a trespassing bison, I suspect I shall find myself urgently called away to speak at a health and safety symposium for the National Philatelic Society’s Foreign Policy Action Group. Because whacking a bison owned by a dodgy charity would make the furore over Cecil the Lion look like the extermination of a rat by comparison.

Keep up the good work.

Yours faithfully,

A. Countryman (name and address were supplied)