FOLLOWING Mrs M Goddard's letter dated June 17 in the Advertiser regarding artificial earths, I would like readers to see a photo of such an earth, especially constructed to encourage the fox population to provide enough foxes to hunt later in the season, or, in a few weeks, all the eight-week-old cubs born in the earth.
Food and water are placed nearby regularly to make the foxes welcome.
In my own area foxes are "protected" because the numbers are declining following lamping the shooting of animals which are blinded by a spotlight.
What total hypocrisy it is that hunts claim foxes to be vermin and pests and hunt them to death and, in the same breath, encourage every one of them to breed to provide entertainment for apparently intelligent men and women who witness appalling cruelty at the hands of starved and often maimed foxhounds.
When the fox can go no further it tries to find shelter and is immediately dug out with spades and forced out by terriers to the grisly end that not many are allowed to witness.
The hunting fraternity are now trying to make a religion out of the sordid practice.
Which century are we living in?
HEATHER J COCHRANE
Pewsey
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