Sickened by it (From Bucks Free Press)

Sickened by it

11:05am Wednesday 21st September 2005 in Your Letters

MICHAEL Wilson (letters September 9) uses the Burns Report to conclude that the ban on foxhunting will lead to foxes being killed by other methods.

I know the report well, and attended the inquiry amongst others. I have also collected much evidence from a wide variety of other sources over the 11 years I have monitored foxhunts, and I disagree with his conclusion.

Mounted hunting kills about 14,000 foxes each year. More than 400,000 die each year from all causes. These figures from the Burns Report show that the effect on the fox population is insignificant, and that foxhunting is nothing but a bloodsport.

Incidentally, it is one which has the added disgrace of much antisocial behaviour. Many readers will have been held up on roads by hunts and their dogs, and some may even have collided with out-of-control hounds.

I have footage of several collisions. And many people have suffered trespass and from the arrogance which accompanies the chaos they cause.

The Burns Report also shows that foxes are rarely other than a minor nuisance to some farmers, so with hunting having no measurable effect on the fox population there is just no need for hunting to be replaced by other methods of killing.

The only apparent reason for Burns to conclude that a ban would lead to fox killing by other methods was because the hunters said it would. But they would, wouldn't they? They hoped it would help their cause, and perpetuated the nonsense that they were providing a service to farmers. And I think a few of them actually believe it.

Miss Alison Latham (letters August 12) wrote that "true country people are angered and sickened by the law."

By "true" Miss Latham means the minority who support hunting. The majority are angered and sickened by hunting.

Peter Bunce, Haddenham