I SINCERELY hope that any Gazette reader condemning fox hunting eat meat or fish, or even drink milk. Far more cruelty happens in the meat and milk industry than on the field, and in far greater numbers too.

Only five to six per cent of yearly fox deaths in the UK are caused by hunting with hounds, most are caused by cars. Let's ban them too!

Meat is not a necessity. All of us who eat it consume it for our own gastro-intestinal pleasure, just like fox hunting is done for sport and pleasure, as well as pest control of course.

So rather than condemning the "toffs" in the "pretty pink coats", maybe people should think about the hidden suffering that happens in this country as well to the animals not as "cute and fluffy" as the fox, and not just treat it as "out of sight out of mind".

I myself am neither for nor against hunting with hounds, though I do a spot of shooting when I can, so I can see the pros and cons of each sport when it comes to foxes. With shooting, it's indiscriminate — any fox no matter how healthy or weak, handsome or ugly, old or young can get shot. In hunting with dogs however, for the most part it's usually the old and weaker ones that get out-run by the dogs.

With shooting, once you have a firearms licence, you can go and shoot foxes, no problem. If you are not a good shot, or are a novice trying to impress your mates, you can easily wound a fox and leave it to die a slow and agonising death. In hunting with dogs, once those dogs have caught that fox, it has a guaranteed death in minutes, if that.

On another note, how many of the readers condemning the field sport care if rats are being ripped apart by dogs, or being fed blood thinner to poison them — a gruelling death for any animal. People who are anti-fox hunting should really think about the bigger images of animal cruelty, rather than just focusing on the "cute and fluffy" animals."

M PHILLIPS Silverton