E BROOKER (HE, April 2) tells us that hunting with hounds is the most humane way to control foxes. Yet the Burns Inquiry into hunting concluded that '...lamping using rifles, if carried out properly... has fewer welfare implications than hunting'.

Snares, traps and poison have been used in conjunction with hunting for more than 200 years, though not encouraged by the hunts — not for humane reasons but to ensure there were plenty of foxes to chase — eg, 'so the lesson was taught to the countryman... that it was a cardinal sin to shoot or trap a fox in hunting country' (Town Fox, Country Fox by Brian Vesey-Fitzgerald — a supporter of hunting).

As for hunting controlling foxes, the Burns Inquiry found that 'the active use of artificial earths, with a view to hunting, is inconsistent with the stated object of controlling fox numbers through hunting'. Indeed, Fox-Hunting by the Duke of Beaufort (1980) states: "In countries where earths are scarce it is sometimes found necessary to make artificial earths to provide somewhere for local foxes to have their cubs: in other words, for breeding purpose."

Remember, for many years, at least up to 1914, foxes were imported into England, at great expense, by the landed gentry and sold at Leadenhall Market in London — fox control? Confirming this state of affairs, Brian Vesey-Fitzgerald tells us that '...from the 1840s to 1939 the fox was, though unofficially, the most carefully protected of all British wild animals: protected by the very people who hunted him'.

As for fox predation of livestock, Burns tell us that 'the best estimate seems to be that a low percentage (less than two per cent) of otherwise viable lambs are killed by foxes in Britain' and 'it is clear that only a small proportion of foxes kill lambs; otherwise, lamb losses would be much higher'. Some years ago, in a film by a vet on sheep/lambs, it was stated that around four million lambs die within 48 hours of birth, mainly from hypothermia, malnutrition and disease with only an insignificant number to fox predation!

Eric Ashby, an expert on foxes, tells us in My Life With Foxes that 'I never lost any free-range poultry (500 chickens and 120 geese) to foxes in 11 years', while a lifelong farmer in Dorset in his letter to the Mid-Week Herald, Sidmouth, tells us that he had at least seven fox earths on his farm and had lost about six chickens to foxes (vixen) in 20 years and does not let the hunt on his land, but leaves nature to keep fox numbers down.

Find the facts indeed!

LEN SHORT

St James Road, Torquay