NESTLING in bronzed leafy surroundings, The Hare and Hounds in Westonbirt was the aptly named venue for the hunting fraternity to bring out the big guns to discuss the surrounding animal welfare issues. And, with the start of the hunting season just days away and the emotive issue still highly political, interest has never been greater. Feature writer KIRSTY RAMSDEN listened to what the experts had to say and then heard from the anti-lobby.

VET SAYS BAN WILL PUT FOXES AT GREATER RISK

A FORMER chief executive of the League Against Cruel Sports seems an unusual choice of speaker at an event organised by three hunts.

However, Jim Barrington was the first to take to the stage at a hunting and animal welfare press conference organised by the Beaufort, Berkeley and Vale of the White Horse hunts

Mr Barrington is now secretary of the Parliamentary All Party Middle Way Group - and one of four former league chief executives, he claimed, to take the view a simple ban on hunting with dogs was wrong from an animal welfare perspective.

His change of direction came, he explained, from getting out from behind a desk and looking at the information.

The Middle Way Group has commissioned a study on the welfare aspects of shooting foxes - one of the study's authors, Dr Nicholas Fox, was present at the conference.

Mr Barrington showed a snatch of a video from the study into the effects of shooting a fox.

He said: "When you shoot a fox you don't know what happens to it."

Shooting is the main alternative to hunting with dogs and is legally undertaken with a variety of weapons, ammunition, distances and skills, he said.

Mr Barrington and the Middle Way Group believe banning hunting would mean uncontrolled and unregulated killing in its place.

The group's proposal involves a change to the Wild Mammals (Protection) Act 1996 to create a new general offence of causing unnecessary suffering to wild mammals and the establishment of a statutory hunting authority.

Hunting without a licence, it suggests, would be a criminal offence with a fine of up to £5,000.

Mr Barrington said: "The only justification for banning hunting with dogs is if it could be shown that the alternative methods of management would improve animal welfare.

"All scientific evidence presently suggests a ban will increase, not reduce, unnecessary suffering."

By his own admission, until several years ago the issue of hunting did not cause Dr Lewis Thomas, a retired veterinary pathologist and co-founder of Vets for Hunting, "a lot of lost sleep".

He was, however, becoming aware of the "outrageous" statements from the anti-hunt lobby, he explained.

He thought some veterinary input into the debate would be useful and began to look at the evidence.

He said: "I got together with a group of like-minded vets."

This group now has a membership of 550 vets.

He told the press conference: "Hunting by hounds is the natural and most humane method of controlling the population of all four quarry species - fox, hare, deer and mink - in the countryside."

To be killed by the hunt was, he added, almost instantaneous and, above all, certain.

"For the fox it is like being hit by a train," he said. "Hunting leaves no wounded or damaged survivors."

He added the quarry was adapted to it by evolution and lacked the complex brain and mental abilities necessary to perceive the human concepts of death and fear.

"The hounds," he added, "perform a vital and unique search and despatch function for the weak and the sick."

In the absence of natural predator, a wounded or damaged animal could die a prolonged and painful death, he explained, whereas the hunt left no wounded or damaged survivors.

Dr Thomas said: "There can be no substitute for this humane function."

Capt Ian Farquhar, joint master of the Beaufort Hunt, added a record had been taken in recent years of the foxes the hunt had killed.

He said: "The number of old, sick, lame or wounded foxes caught was higher than you would have thought."

David Allen, who farms at Hill, near Berkeley, added the welfare of foxes dominated his reasons for allowing the hunt on his land.

A non-hunting farmer, Mr Allen said foxes suffering from mange had struggled into his barns to die and he had been forced to shoot them to put them out of their misery.

Hunting was a way of eliminating the sick and diseased by killing almost instantaneously, he said.

Ecologist and conservationist Desmond Hobson highlighted the impact of voluntary conservation work undertaken by hunts and their supporters.

He said: "The local hunts - Beaufort, Berkeley and Vale of the White Horse - are to be congratulated for the amount of time and resources they pour into woodland and hedgerow management.

"Local hunts are managing more than nine per cent of their local woodlands - far in excess of any wildlife organisation.

"Scientists have proved that this work benefits woodland wildlife, including butterflies and wild flowers.

"The tragedy is that, if hunting is banned, nearly all of this work will stop and we are likely to see an acceleration in the rate of loss of wild animals and flowers from the countryside."

Pictured: The Berkeley Hunt meets at Berkeley

NO ROOM FOR HUNTING IN A MODERN SOCIETY

SO incensed at hunting was smallholder Pat Hemming that she and a farmer friend launched the Cotswold Support Group for the Abolition of Hunting.

They live in the north of the Cotswolds, have five hunts within a 25-mile radius and formed the group to provide a voice for those against the sport.

Ms Hemming totally dismissed the need for the fox to be culled.

She said areas tended to have a dominant pair of foxes, which then self regulated, moving about as cubs grew.

However, she said, if a creature needed to be culled then shooting had to be the most humane way.

She criticised the pre-longed chase of the hunt, which she claimed, could last for hours.

"Shooting doesn't involve a chase," she said.

She said of the hunt: "All they are wanting to do is enjoy themselves at the expense of a wild animal."

All her group wanted, she said, for a creature which was sick or injured and needed to be put down, was for it to be done as quickly and humanely as possible.

"Hunting should have been confined to the history books so many years ago - there is no room for it in the 21st century."

Speaking on behalf of friends of the Cotswold Support Group for the Abolition of Hunting, Ms Hemming added: "Many of our supporters are landowners, farmers and smallholders whose meadows, hedgerows and woodland offer tranquil sanctuary to our wildlife, purely for the benefit of wildlife and with no selfish conditions attached.

"They are the future of our countryside; the hunters are history."

Meanwhile eminent supporters of a ban on hunting have hit back at the claims from the hunting lobby that hunted foxes do not suffer.

Speaking to representatives of the Cotswold Support Group for the Abolition of Hunting, the Rev Prof Andrew Linzey, a senior research fellow in ethics, theology and animals at the University of Oxford, explained foxes did experience fear and trauma.

He said: "There is now ample scientific evidence in peer-reviewed journals that all mammals experience not just pain, but also mental suffering, ie terror, shock, fear, anxiety, stress, foreboding and trauma - and that only to a greater or lesser extent than we do ourselves.

"Of course, their experience of suffering may not be always identical with our own, but the moral issue is whether their experience of suffering is as important to them as ours is to us.

"To claim that animals don't suffer when hunted is palpably absurd."

Emma Milne, a Gloucestershire veterinary surgeon who is well known for her television appearances, refuted the hunters' claim shooting was less humane than hunting.

"It has been shown time and again that the welfare of foxes is seriously compromised by being hunted with dogs," she said.

"Those who are pro-hunting say shooting is less humane but they are not talking about lamping and shooting by trained people. "Shooting, when carried out correctly, is by far the most humane way of controlling fox numbers.

"Hunting is outdated, ineffective, inefficient and unnecessary besides being entertainment for those who will not admit they enjoy chasing and killing animals."

John Bryant, author of Living With Urban Wildlife, former chief officer of the League Against Cruel Sports, and now operating a humane wildlife deterrence service in London and the South-East, dismissed the suggestion wildlife habitat depended on hunting.

He said: "For hunt fanatics to claim the only way to preserve wildlife habitat is to allow them to use it to set dogs onto wild animals, just proves that the hunting mentality belongs to a bygone age.

"It is the equivalent to saying that London's royal parks will now have to close unless we allow tourists to entertain themselves by slaughtering the wild birds that congregate there.

"Most of us don't have to go round killing things in order to value wildlife".

Douglas Batchelor, the current chief executive of League Against Cruel Sports, said: "The Middle Way Group seems to be suggesting that farmers are incompetents who cruelly shoot and injure foxes instead of killing them.

"Our experience is that most farmers abhor cruelty to animals and would only ever shoot when they know they can safely do so.

"If the Middle Way Group truly believe this is a problem, they should be calling for steps to be taken to ensure that people are required to show they have the necessary training and proficiency in the use of firearms before they are licensed to use them.

"I'm sure that no one concerned with the best interests of wildlife wishes to be cruel.

"That is why the vast majority of people oppose the cruelty and barbarism of setting dogs on wild animals."