I AM rather taken aback that Joan Jones is so against my opposition to killing vixens while they are feeding their cubs, Cubbing is too grisly a pastime for words, Points of view, April 18.

I don't personally go fox hunting so I had a look on the internet and the description of cubbing from a hunt saboteurs site was at almost complete variance to the one in her letter. The site confirmed my suspicion that the "cubs" hunted are virtually fully grown foxes.

Be that as it may there is a crucial difference between her description of now illegal fox hunting and a shot vixen's cubs slowly starving to death. The hunted cubs, if and when caught, die a quick death, whereas the starving cubs whose mother has been shot die a slow and painful death.

Scientific studies made since the Hunting Act came into force have also indicated a high wounding rate from shooting. Wounded foxes die a far longer and more painful death than hunted ones.

It was for these and other reasons that the Government's own Burns inquiry did not conclude that hunting foxes with dogs was any crueller than other methods of control. Research undertaken since the ban in fact indicates it is less so. The law should encourage the least cruel methods of controlling animals. Starving them to death is crueller than killing them quickly.

Giles Bradshaw

Rose Ash

(by email)