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A vigilante animal rights group claims to have taken responsibility for releasing between 3,000 and 16,000 pheasants from a farm in North Devon.

In an email to Bite Back Magazine seen by DevonLive, a group called the Animal Liberation Front says its members released the birds from Southern Partridges Ltd at Court Barton, Yarnscombe, near Barnstaple, at the weekend.

The group suggest the incident could be the "biggest release in the history" of the organisation - though the number of birds released varies between their estimate and that of the police's.

The Animal Liberation Front say they freed between 12,000 and 16,000 birds, while the police estimate the number at 3,000.

The email says: "On the evening of the 14th April 2018, our group entered onto the one and half acre site owned by Southern Partridges.

"There was a mix of older cages and newer ones, each cage typically houses two to five birds. The long rows of cages side by side on this site means that in total there are easily 20,0000+ partridges when the site is full.

"The purpose of having this factory farm set up is so that many thousands of eggs are hatched on site every week and are then sold on to shoots to just be used as live targets. Well, not any more."

The group said that because the rows of cages ran up to the owners' home, they left the last few rows of cages "due to concern over the noise of fleeing birds waking the occupants".

They continued: "A few rows of cages were also already empty, meaning in total between 12,000-16,000 birds were released.

"The older style cages had a slide wooden flap, the newer ones had a lifting metal flap, each one of us was opening cages at the rate of 60-80 a minute.

"We worked hard and in less than two hours we'd opened as many as we could, the air was thick with birds, partridges flew around us constantly.

"It was a truly uplifting experience knowing our evening's work was saving all these individual lives from a hellish daily experience, not only that, but also none of their offspring would be taken and sold on to gamekeepers.

"That night we dealt a huge blow to the partridge shooting industry in the UK and those involved in this disgusting activity would be foolish not to expect more from us.

"Until every cage is empty, Animal Liberation Front."

On their website, Southern Partidges say they are a family-run game farm which was established in 1975 in Kent before relocating to North Devon in 1984.

Southern Partidges is owned and operated by Tim and Marian Farr and their two sons Dan and Ned.

Their website states that all the birds reared by them are done so "to the game Farmers Association Code of Rearing Practice".

DevonLive contacted Southern Partridges Ltd but the owners said they were only able to confirm that there had been an incident at the farm and that police had been informed.

A spokesman for Devon and Cornwall Police said: "We have been made aware of laying pens at a farm in Yarnscombe having been tampered with, leading to the release and loss of in the region of 3,000 pheasants.

"It is believed that this took place overnight on Saturday 14 April into Sunday 15 April.

"Anyone with any information is asked to contact 101@dc.police.uk quoting crime reference CR/031844/18.

"You can also give information anonymously via Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111."