Fox Hunting

So fox hunters don’t hurt their prey (“Aristocratic Fox Hunt Survives in East, Spreads to West,” Feb. 18). Bullfeathers!

Hunters train hound pups by letting them tear up and eat kit foxes the hunters dig out of dens. The hounds are also baited with and allowed to tear part live animals tied to the ends of sticks.

Often hunters deliberately maim a captured fox before release. They cut a few inches off her tail so she will bleed, or sprinkle broken glass outside her den so she will cut her pads and bleed on the way out. Sometimes they “bag” a fox before release; that is, they beat her into defecating and urinating while inside a bag and then roll her in the mess to make her easier to trail. When caught, the exhausted animal is ripped apart alive by the dogs.

Fox hunters often fantasize that foxes--or in some cases coyotes--enjoy the hunts. They even fantasize that they themselves are “sportsmen.” Worse, stories like yours perpetuate this rot.

CARLA BENNETT, Staff Writer

People for the Ethical Treatment

of Animals, Washington