Letter: Puritans in pursuit of fox-hunters

Sir: Of the huge majority of MPs to vote in favour of a total ban on handguns I wonder how many will vote against a ban on fox-hunting with hounds. After all, if this type of hunting does stop, the almost certain result will be a huge increase in shotgun ownership in rural areas in order to control the fox population.

Sadly I think that there are those in Parliament who see the right of a fox to savage, but never be savaged, as somehow above all other issues. What the people who oppose the use of hounds do not understand is that the world of wildlife or nature is a much more violent world than that of human civilisation.

Wildlife is largely about animals ripping each other apart, and fox numbers have been kept down in that way - nature's way - long before the involvement of humans. Anyway, much more painful ways of killing these animals are used where hunting is already banned. One such method is hours of agonising entrapment followed by shooting.

P F KEVAN

London N8