Pandering to urban ignorance

Sir, - I remember when managing land in Ayrshire the phone call telling me five lambs had been killed the night before by foxes, and seeing the bodies later.

That week’s total for the farm was 22.

Jim Crumley may have a point about territorial vacancy, but to argue from that to statutory protection for foxes reduces his argument to tendentious absurdity.

Turn on two pages from his article and the picture of a fox stuck in a graveyard illustrates their ability to thrive anywhere.

He wishes that “wildlife manages wildlife” from the luxury of earning his living writing about it rather than living and working with it while trying to produce food for the nation.

As farmers we each have our own idea of where balance lies in pursuing our commercial and humane interests with the natural world, but emotive and inaccurate articles like Jim’s simply pander to the electorate’s ignorance of the rural. Hector Maclean. Spott Farm, Glenprosen.