READING about Hannah Foster in the Echo on March 30 about repealing the Hunting Act, one can only say "same old Conservative Party".

According to the hunting lobby, hunting is more popular than it was before the ban. That one fact makes a complete nonsense of their claims the Act needs to be repealed. If it is more popular now than before why would they want to go back to a situation where hunting was less popular?

I find the hunters' arguments in support of repeal nothing less than pathetic. They claim that the passage of the Act was an act of class prejudice.

They seem unable to grasp the concept that what most people are against is cruelty and abuse for so-called sport. The practice of setting dogs onto animals for sport is cruel and abusive. The call for repeal is all about turning the clock back and making it legal to set a dog or dogs on to an animal for sport.

They argue that the kill is quick and humane despite evidence to the contrary. Death by disembowelling clearly isn't humane and yet that is the reality of fox, mink and hare hunting with a pack of hounds.

Death by short-barrelled shotgun is equally questionable if the hunted animal has to be hunted over a considerable distance to a standstill before the shot can be administered.

The terrier men have turned into the hunting equivalent of rural ambulance chasers. They are to be seen accompanying most alleged trail hunts clearly in wait of a fox being accidentally found. Terrier work should be called fox baiting because it's just an organised type of dog fighting where terriers are pitted against foxes for sport.

Kathy Moyle

East Budleigh