Hounds said to have been responsible for animal’s death

The Scottish Government is being urged to strengthen hunting laws amid claims that a fox suffered a “dreadful and repugnant” death after being killed by a pack of hounds.

Animal charities OneKind and the League Against Cruel Sports said they were notified of the animal’s death, said to have happened on November 5 at Harelaw, close to Bridge of Weir in Renfrewshire.

They arranged for vets to carry out an autopsy on the animal, which they said found “the fox had suffered severe trauma consistent with that caused by a dog or dogs”.

While the fox had been shot, the examination by SAC Consulting Veterinary Services is said to have concluded it was unlikely this was the cause of death.

Instead the charities claimed the animal had been killed by dogs from the Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire Hunt.

Fox hunting with dogs was banned in Scotland in 2002, with the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act stating that a person who deliberately hunts a wild mammal with a dog is committing an offence.

An exception is made whereby dogs under control may be used “to flush a fox or mink from below ground or ... to flush a fox from an enclosed space within rocks or other secure cover above ground”.

Director Harry Huyton said: “Despite a law which supposedly prevents foxes from suffering negative welfare impacts from hunting with hounds, this unprecedented post-mortem of a hunted fox makes it clear that suffering continues.”

He added: “The level of trauma experienced by the fox prior to its death and the manner in which it died is completely unacceptable and debunks the myth that foxes killed by packs of hounds are dispatched with a ‘quick nip to the back of the neck’. The pathology report highlights a catalogue of gruesome injuries leaving no doubt to the extent to which this animal suffered.”

Robbie Marsland, director of the League Against Cruel Sports in Scotland, stated: “We look forward to the Scottish Government strengthening the law to make sure that no other foxes are killed in this dreadful and repugnant way.

“The law was intended to put an end to the cruelty of hunting foxes with hounds but it isn’t worth the paper it’s written on if wild animals are continuing to suffer in this manner.”

Lord Bonomy is working on a review of fox hunting legislation for the Scottish Government.

Mark Crichton Maitland, chairman of the Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire Fox-Hounds, said the claims from OneKind and the League Against Cruel Sports were a “stunt” ahead of the publication of Lord Bonomy’s review.

He stated: “As far as what happened on the day, the fox was shot pretty cleanly, death was pretty instantaneous.”

Fox hunting with dogs was banned in Scotland in 2002.