The police should prioritise animal welfare over the rights of protesters who storm farms and upset livestock, the Countryside Alliance has said, after activists were accused of causing the deaths of thousands of pheasant chicks.

Direct action from animal rights campaigners, in which they storm farms, is on the rise, according to Tim Bonner, the chief executive of the organisation.

Over the last year, activists have been accused of disturbing and even killing animals including piglets and turkeys.

Last month, pheasant farmer Eloise McDonald, 23, found dead chicks with hundreds of birds huddled together after a raid on her family farm near Ashford, Kent.

She wrote on Facebook: "Some lowlife scumbag so-called 'animal lovers' let out 20,000 of my birds, cut all the fencing, cut gas pipes, hundreds of week-old birds dead, gasping for water and starving!"

Ms McDonald estimated that around 3,000 birds had perished.

Mr Bonner said that while hunt saboteurs have engaged in forms of direct action for decades, there is a new wave of vegan activists who storm farms in order to get pictures for social media and raise awareness of their cause.

He told The Telegraph: "It's a relatively new phenomenon, the farm invasions isn't something we've seen much of before.