SIR - There is no need for foxes to be subjected to increased suffering because hunting has been banned (Attack on hunting won't help the fox, John Hobhouse, October 26).
Since the RSPCA's raison d'tre is to prevent cruelty and promote kindness to animals, of course we support the law banning hunting.
Mr Hobhouse does not specify which research on wounding rates in shot foxes he is referring to. I assume he means a study carried out by the Middle Way Group. The RSPCA challenges the validity and premise of this research.
The study used a selection of unskilled and skilled shooters, with a range of weapons and ammunition, without any attempt to relate these variables to reality. It merely provided support for the prediction that unskilled shooters with inappropriate weapons are most likely to wound the target animal.
The British Association for Shooting and Conservation, like the RSPCA, criticised the original Middle Way Group research for failing to assess whether the researchers' experimental shooters and experimental set-ups echoed the situation in the field.
Nothing in the Middle Way Group's research offers any evidence that the wounding rates they inferred from their experiment would be reflected in real life - nor that wounding levels would increase as a consequence of the hunting ban.
JOHN ROLLS,
Director of Animal Welfare Promotion, RSPCA.
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