SIR – L Granville and Paul Bellingham support foxhunting on the grounds that it aids natural selection by ensuring that only the older and weaker foxes are killed. (Letters, January 16).
This approach seems counter-productive for the farmers they claim to be assisting.
Younger, fitter foxes are much more likely to complete a successful attack on a chicken coup. Eliminating the weaker, duller varieties from the gene pool surely aids the advancement of a super-fox blessed with the speed and cunning required to escape the hunt and successfully attack farmers’ stock.
Seventy-five per cent of the population support the ban on foxhunting, 71 per cent in rural areas, (Ipsos MORI 2008).
Clearly this figure includes a number of farmers not taken in by false arguments in favour of hunting.
DOUGLAS BATCHELOR,
League Against Cruel Sports,
Godalming
