THE attack on me by Jon Burgess (You Say, May 1) is a familiar strategy of apologists for bloodsports - to deflect attention from the actual facts.

He accuses me of "desperation" and using "extreme measures".

Perhaps he could explain which "extreme measures" we are using to prove our case. Mind you, to be labelled extreme by a hunter and hare courser is an object lesson in irony that probably escapes him.

What I did in my letter of April 23 was to relate a brief, factual account of the killing of a heavily pregnant vixen by the New Forest Foxhounds, of which I have photographic evidence. The death of her soon-to-be-born cubs was as a direct result of the vixen being bitten to death by the hounds.

Witnesses had seen her being chased for some distance. But the killing of heavily pregnant vixens by hunts is not unusual. The Worcestershire Foxhounds killed one in a pensioner's garden a few years ago - although these brutal incidents only come to light when seen by someone who objects.

I also related a similarly brief account of the protracted and brutal killing of an otherwise healthy stag. It was apparently chased to exhaustion, before being killed in front of tourists in the Exmoor village of Dulverton. Those are the facts.

Jon Burgess and others of his ilk may try to hide them, or even make desperate attacks on those who reveal them - but that won't change them as facts. So who is the extremist here - those who gain pleasure from the pursuit and death of wild animals - or those who reveal the brutal truth?

MAURICE BRETT,

Bromsgrove.