IF the pro-hunt minority are genuinely keeping within the legal limit and at the same time sure of their case for repealing the Hunting Act why are they so hostile towards anyone monitoring their activities?

The alleged running down of two monitors by a Tedworth Hunt terrier man on a quad bike on October 29, can only confirm misgivings about these people’s intentions and the ethic of a ‘report’ requiring hounds to be savage with their fox. This man had a terrier in a box on the back of his quad bike, evidently he was not taking part in a harmless trail hunt and expected to be required to set the dog on a fox escaping underground. It is not a good sign when observation of hunt activity last season revealed increased use of terrier men, digging out and other undesirable incidents including animal abuse.

In the next month (November?) 10 Eridge and Southdown Hunt supporters blocked a Land Rover belonging to a monitoring group and violently attacked the driver and a passenger, a Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire Hunt member fired off a gun at a monitor and Rockwood Harriers supporters in Yorkshire hemmed in two monitors in a parked van and smashed the windscreen and rear windows with a hammer. These people seem afraid of being monitored, escaped and prosecuted when a ‘trail hunt in a fox haunt has hounds harassing a fox unchecked and cannot rely on pretexts of ‘just control’ (in which case why was an artificial earth found in Tedworth county in 1999?) and quick humane cullling”. This was disproved by consistent post mortem evidence of severe multiple bites and tears in cheek and abdomen.

Demanding self-regulation when Masters of Foxhounds Association rules against “confrontation” with objectors and monitors, have consistently gone by the board in the hunting field, is incongruous - demanding Parliamentary time to repeal the Hunting Act is presumptuous when we are preoccupied with economics crisis and so many other urgent issues.

Attitudes must change on the part of hunting devotees who claim to be sportsmen and acting in the best interests of wildlife and rural communities.

(Miss) KATHERINE WATSON Rushton Drive Bramhall Stockport