STEVE Reed (You Say, July 13) is typical of apologists for bloodsports who try and justify its existence by emotionally blackmailing the general public into believing that fox "control" is necessary and that other forms of control rather than hunting with dogs would cause more suffering.

This argument shows a failure of intellect and a failure of imagination.

A failure of intellect because the ignorance of fox ecology is just astounding. Foxes do not require controlling - their numbers are governed by available food and territory.

To kill foxes by any method is pointless as that vacated territory will soon again be occupied.

And, as now proven, hunts are responsible for increasing fox numbers by the construction of artificial earths and the hunts' very interference with what would have been stable groupings leads to dispersal of fox families so increasing populations elsewhere.

Post mortem results on hunted foxes reveal that they die through a combination of dog bites and severe abdominal trauma, in other words, torn to pieces.

It is a protracted and horrendous death, not the "quick nip to the back of the neck" as often claimed by the hunt industry in an attempted defence of their vile sport.

A KNITTEL, Worcester.