Hunt meets (From Durham Times)

Hunt meets

1:43pm Friday 24th December 2010 in Letters

Sir, – I was both saddened and disappointed to note the letter from a national organisation advertising Hunting “meets”.

The hunting of animals with dogs is inherently cruel.

It is only necessary to put oneself in the position of being pursued by a pack intent on killing to know just how terrified a fox or stag must be.

Research has shown that, even when a fox manages to to escape, it often dies through heart failure brought about through the extreme stress experienced.

Photographs of stags frantically trying to escape, eyes shot with terror, clearly show the dreadful fear that these animals are subjected to.

If a group of youths set their dogs on to a domestic cat and it was shredded, the outcry would be enormous. Calls for punishment would be loud and long and charges, conviction and punishment would rightly follow. Just what is the difference between this and organised hunting?

Your correspondent states that the public are “rock solid”

behind hunting. This, of course, is palpable nonsense.

Polls consistently showed that the public overwhelmingly supported the bill to curtail hunting. This was true of all areas. An NOP poll quoted in Parliament by Michael Foster MP, in support of his private bill, showed 66 per cent of rural dwellers in Devon supporting a council-imposed ban.

If hunting is cruel, it should be banned even if it was effective in reducing fox numbers.

In reality, it comes a very long way short of doing this. Up to 50 people pursuing one animal can hardly be said to be efficient. When hunting was banned in Scotland, earlier than in England, a huge increase in the number of foxes killed, using more efficient and infinitely less cruel methods, largely shooting, was reported.

Sadly, hunting is about pleasure, with selective cubbing ensuring that the fox population is kept at an optimum for maximum returns.

If people wish to to gain enjoyment from riding horses over the countryside, why can they not follow a drag or a mounted human who controls directions from vantage points, as is happily done in Germany and Denmark, where hunting has long been properly banned, never with a live and fearful quarry – or is the terrorising of animals the key to enjoyment?

I am not an animal lover; I do not own any pets. I am simply opposed to wanton and unnecessary cruelty, the torture and killing of animals as well as humans.

JOHN SEVERS Durham City