The case for hunting

SIR – I disagree with Arthur Bayley’s suggestion (Letters, January 16) that there is no moral justification for hunting and killing animals with dogs for sport and enjoyment.

For many, the various forms of hunting are both necessary and enjoyable. A lot of people enjoy shooting, stalking, angling, ferreting, ratting and falconry. However, sportsmen do not like to inflict cruelty on their quarry, and to suggest otherwise is unfair and inaccurate.

Those against country sports are often selective about which ones they want banned and, as a result, their beliefs and claims are inconsistent. James Mulleneux

Wadhurst, East Sussex

SIR – When fox hunting was still legal, a research project was undertaken in which every fox killed by a particular hunt was sent to a laboratory to establish how it had died.

In each case, it was found that the fox had died instantly following a bite on the back of the neck by the lead hound; all the wounds to the body had been inflicted after the fox was dead. Tearing up dead meat is not cruel.

Hunting must be preferable to the current situation, where so many foxes are shot and injured. It is very difficult to shoot dead such a small, swiftly moving target – and so the animals get away and die slowly.

Few of those who hunt have ever been near enough to the front of the chase to see a fox despatched, so it is a myth to claim that enjoying such a spectacle is the reason for hunting. Those opposing it raise no objection to the depiction of savage predation in television wildlife programmes, which are regarded as family entertainment. Melvyn Owen

St Ives, Huntingdonshire