SIR - Jon Burgess asked to see evidence that hunts are acting illegally. He only has to venture into the countryside on a Saturday afternoon during the season to see it for himself.

A hunt in the south east of England has recently been banned from a local golf course for chasing and ripping apart a pregnant vixen, leaving the staff to clear up her body and entrails. Is this proof enough that illegal fox-hunting is still with us? I have been monitoring hunts in and around the county of Worcestershire all season, from cubbing to their final meets. The large majority of hunts are flouting the law, while hiding behind the loopholes in the Hunting Act. The only way around this argument would be to tighten up all the loopholes in the current legislation and make hunting illegal, without exception.

Mr Burgess seems to think that the large majority of the public disagrees with the hunting ban, but most people want to see an end to the cruelty involved in hunting.

If all hunts were to switch to legal drag hunting, no jobs would be lost and no hounds would be put down. I notice there is never any mention of the thousands of hounds shot by their own hunts. May I suggest hunting is more about bloodlust than a way of country life?

JO O'BRIEN,

On behalf of Midlands Society Against Blood Sport