A RECENTLY-published NOP opinion poll of 1,000 members of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons found that a significant majority of our rural colleagues polled opposed a ban on hunting on welfare grounds for the quarry species.

In February last year, we submitted A Veterinary Opinion on Hunting with Hounds to the Government Inquiry into Hunting with Dogs (Burns Inquiry). This was submitted on behalf of some 300 of our colleagues in the Vets for Hunting Group.

The report concludes that far from being cruel, hunting represents the most natural and humane method of controlling the populations of the four wild animal quarry species, fox, deer, hare and mink, in the countryside.

It is important to appreciate that what we are considering here are wild animals. They are used to hunting and being hunted. They are not domestic pets, but wild animals in their natural habitat.

For 90 per cent or more of any hunt, they are not fleeing in terror of their lives, but rather are moving away in a remarkably controlled manner to a entirely natural, albeit adverse stimulus.

Final stages

It is only in the short final stages of a hunt that the quarry comes under any serious stress and that no more, in physiological terms, than the extended athlete or racehorse. There is no apparent premonition of death, and if and when it comes, death is almost instantaneous and above all certain. Hunting produces no wounded survivors, as can other methods of control when not carried out by professionals. Furthermore, hunting is selective in that it tends to pull out the weak, the sick and the aged. It also allows respite for breeding during the closed season. None of this can be said for other methods of control.

We do not seek primarily to protect personal liberty, a country sport or however many jobs in the countryside. First and foremost we seek to protect the welfare of wild animals in the wild.

The full rationale may be found at: www.vets-for-hunting.co.uk

DR L H TOMAS MA and PROFESSOR W R ALLEN,

Newbury, Berkshire.