IT is disingenuous for James Barrington to position himself as an advocate of the 'middle way' on hunting, Points of view, April 28, while an 'animal welfare consultant' for the pro-hunting Countryside Alliance.

Regardless of this, no evidence has ever been presented to show that fox hunting had any impact on long-term local or national fox populations: culling simply vacates territories for other foxes to take over, and is a short- term solution at best.

Before the hunters' sport was threatened, they were open about keeping the fox population up. In the past, the greatest crime you could commit in some areas of the countryside was to kill a fox that could have been hunted. This fact, and the cruelty of the hunt, are both often accepted in pre-1980s books and articles in favour of hunting.

Feeding of foxes and the provision of artificial earths continued to be the practice of some hunts (as shown by IFAW investigations) up until the introduction of the ban, and possibly after it.

Just a month before the Hunting Act was passed, the Masters of Fox Hounds Association sent a letter to 800 hunt masters warning of a nationwide "shortage of foxes". It urged that landowners should be encouraged to breed more foxes to solve the "problem".

Comparisons of dogs trained and managed by humans for sport with wolves in the wild are nonsense, and to claim that only "ailing, injured or aged" foxes are targeted ignores the hunters' clear appreciation of a long chase; the slaughter of young foxes in surrounded copses throughout the early autumn; and the practice of digging out foxes that have gone to ground.

Mr Barrington talks about the welfare problems of shooting and snaring, but two wrongs do not make a right, and the Countryside Alliance is a strong advocate of both practices.

The passing of the Hunting Act represents a big step away from a shameful history of animal cruelty for entertainment.

Tania McCrea-Steele

International Fund for Animal Welfare

(by email)