HAVING read the contribution by Maurice Brett, suggesting that veterinary surgeons show an ignorance towards foxhunting (You Say, December 14), I think that it is probably fair to suggest that he and his small band of anti-hunting protesters have now completely lost the plot.

Over the years, they have attempted to twist and distort the facts about hunting without success and, in recent years, this Government has conducted its own independent inquiry into all aspects of hunting.

Sadly, Maurice just could not accept these findings. That inquiry was unable to conclude that hunting is in any way cruel.

Recently, a survey found that 63 per cent of all rural vets believe that hunting with dogs is as welfare-friendly as other methods of fox control.

Opportunity

Maurice's response to the veterinary profession is to brand them as ignorant.

Over the past 45 years, I have followed many different packs of hounds, but it is only in the last few years that I have had the opportunity to delve deeply into the welfare of foxes.

Having read the Burns Report, which was this Government's own independent inquiry into the subject of hunting, I am now certain in my own mind that hunting with dogs is a very humane method of helping in the control of the fox population.

Maurice Brett chooses to attack the veterinary profession because their views do not coincide with his own.

He is living proof that anti-hunting people are not interested in the welfare of the fox population.

He and his friends, a very tiny minority, are only interested in the destruction of rural Britain as we know it today.

TIM PINNEY,

Pershore.