THE long saga of the hunting debate would have ended sooner had the media been able to secure access to expose the cruelty behind the glamorous faade.

An example now is cub-hunting, the training of novice foxhounds to hunt fox cubs.

The leading hunting expert, the late Duke of Beaufort, highlighted the inherent cruelty in this pastime in his book Fox Hunting.

"The object of cub-hunting is to educate both young hounds and fox cubs... it is not until he has been hunted that the fox draws fully on his resources of sagacity and cunning so that he is able to provide a really good run.

"It is essential that hounds should have their blood up and learn to be savage with their fox before he is killed."

Guided tours

If hounds being savage with fox cubs before killing them were televised, with multi-angle replays and slow motion as in the genuine sports of Rugby League or Cricket, bloodsports would surely have been banned long ago.

The Burns Hunting Inquiry tried to inform Parliament but even they were barred from seeing cub-hunting. Their guided tours by the hunting fraternity lasted only from February to June 2000.

With cub-hunting staged from August until the end of October they missed observing the full measure of savagery.

Nevertheless, this inquiry judged that foxhunting "seriously compromises the welfare of the fox."

If only they, the media and public had seen what really happens!

M J HUSKISSON,

Animal Welfare Information Service, Halesworth.