West Midlands

It was interesting to watch the footage of your hunt reporting. However I thought it was quite sad that the angle of the piece was very one sided. I think that if you are going to present a documentary you have to treat a topic fairly. in this case it was quite obvious that you were firmly on the side of the hunt monitors.

This was made clear not only by the fact that the only times you followed the hunt was with monitors and not with the members of the hunt itself.

Then when you did speak to the lady master of the hunt, the only thing you seemed interested in was the point that horses surrounding a car may be seen as intimidating...

There was no mention of the fact that these monitors are not just people minding their own business on a day out and stumble across this confrontation - these so called monitors have no job, or real reason to be out following the hunt, only to cause trouble.

Throughout the last 5 years hunts have suffered huge blows with political torture, and so it not surprising that tempers get raised when there are nosey women rushing around putting video cameras in their faces.

The majority of people who hunt work hard in order to enjoy their days freedom in the country on their horses to escape the mad and hectic lifestyles we all lead, and the last thing they want is the bad vibe and feeling of oppression by being filmed.

If the rural police forces thought that crimes were being committed, then I'm sure they would take action. I think the women in your documentary were not out to cause trouble, then they would not encounter it.

Hunting takes place on private land, and often 100 people or more have to give consent for a single days hunting... if hunting was not welcomed in rural England, it would die of its own accord.

So next time you start a rural documentary it would pay to look into it with a little fairness...

Otis Ferry

Thank you for showing your program on Fox Hunting. I am a monitor in Cumbria and we know that the hunting is continuing to take place, yet we get very little support from the police or the land owners, such as the National Trust, Forestry Commission etc

Programmes like yours bring the issue into the homes of the 77% of people who are against fox hunting and think that the ban has stopped the killing of foxes. Maybe it could encourage people to come out and show their actual support against fox hunting.

There are a couple of issues I still can't understand. These are:
Why use fox piss to lay trails, surely that is asking for trouble. Also how do they get the fox piss?

I have been told that fox hounds, unless trained to follow trails, can't do so, so why the police don't ask for a demonstration is beyond me.

The other issue is that the followers and the hunts can lie to their community about what is going on, is this a class issue in the sense that everybody is to be subservient to the will of the privileged and belief all they say?

Keep up the good work

MTH

I was very interested in the hunting issue featured on Inside Out last night. I have to say though, I'm sure the so called monitors were on their best behaviour while the BBC were filming with them; the reality however is quite a different.

They should be called 'hunt disrupters'. As far as I could make out, it was quite evident from your footage of the hounds 'killing' that once again, interference from these people helped to seal that foxes' fate. If you watch the hounds coming down that lane, the monitor's vehicles are blocking their scent path, so the unfortunate fox hiding to their right is picked up rather than the hounds freely continuing to the original scent trail.

This is why the rest of the hunt followers and field are not allowed to get on top of hounds when they are running, so as not to disrupt them.

Unfortunately these monitors do not understand the basics of this, as is blatantly demonstrated in your footage.

Another point I noticed, was how quickly it all happened. I remember much anti propaganda about how long foxes took to die, and how they were 'ripped to pieces' by hounds. I noticed your monitor saying the hunt had 'taken the carcass away', as she showed blooded leaves and twigs to the camera. There seems to be rather a large contradiction there.

Would the lady in tears of been crying over a rat or a rabbit that had been killed by a terrier in the same fashion? I think not.

Our local hunt has had to put up with these people and their disruptive, pedantic and abusive behaviour many times. Blocking roads to car followers, cutting across and turning hounds who are following laid trails, who then pick up foxes instead, all purposely so they can blame the hunt if a fox is accidentally chased and killed.

They film followers including children, and get very nasty if the same is tried on them.

I'm surprised that there aren't more incidents of monitors' cars being surrounded by followers. Monitors do their best to create these situations so they can film it. I'm sure that is what your ladies were up to when they both drove down that lane.
They do it because at the end of the day, it all returns to the prejudice issue.

All antis thought a hunting ban meant that they would stop as they saw it 'snobs galloping about on their horses'. This demonstrated the complete lack of understanding of how the countryside works, and the same ignorance was responsible for bringing about an un-workable law.

Now trail hunting is just a vehicle used by these people to try their best to persecute and victimise members of hunts trying to continue, the best way they can to ensure that horses, hounds, racing and all other activities linked to hunting and the employment that goes with it, can survive.

I hope you will in future try to bear these points in mind if you decide to investigate next hunting season. The point-to-point season is now in full swing. These are all organised by local hunts, and the horses racing have all qualified with their local packs during the hunting season. Without hunting these meetings wouldn't take place.

Charlotte Bateman

Thank you for broadcasting the programme Friday 21st March about the hunt monitors who monitor the Heythrop hunt.

It was particularly brave of you to show film that indicates that hunts kill foxes by ripping them apart with dogs, that hunt dogs dangerously wander all over the road out of control and that hunters box in and harrass monitors or anyone who disagrees with them.

These are all scenes that hunters and the Countryside Alliance wish to hide from the public. So your investigative journalists were very brave to show them.

Other activities of some hunts also include killing family pets in the owner's garden, invading land where the landowner has expressly asked them not to enter, hitting people with riding crops who get in their way, and pushing people in to ditches. Terrier men, who are used by the hunt to do their dirty work also keep their fighting dogs in an appalling state.

Hunts are not the jolly image presented by the Countryside Alliance, they are more often low life thugs and bullies who enjoy terrifying people, not just wildlife, and they terrify their neighbours into silence about their activities.

Thank you for being brave enough to show your film. I hope you do not get in to too much trouble about it.

Yvonne

I have two questions after watching the article on hunting, firstly why does the hunt use fox scent for the hounds to follow, surely training the hounds to hunt a different scent would make a lot more sense. 

Secondly, I have dogs which have to wear a collar, tag and be on a lead on a road by law. Why are hounds allowed to run along/across public roads causing chaos?

Julie Govier

Last night I was watching Inside Out and found great dismay in the foxhunting report. I am from the country and love going to the hunt. I feel great sympathy with all hunt masters having to be trailed by these 'monitors'. What they don't understand is that most hunts are co-operating fully with the police so when the time comes that the ban is lifted they are ready.

When I saw one monitor cry over a fox I laughed. What they don't understand is that by killing the foxes the foodchain stays in the right proportions; something they always claim they want to do.

In regard to blocking them I agree, they (the monitors) have no right to do what they do and as long as what the hunt does is legal then do it! If the horse kicks a car then it is the monitors fault for distressing them and making them jumpy. Foxes are vermin which severely reduce a farmers profit; similar to losing your money to frauds. It may be a sport but so is football.

These monitors are ridiculous and are un-needed: that is the police's job. Leave it to them. I truly sympathise with the Heythorp Hunt for having to put up with the monitors. Get rid of them.

William Smith

I am concerned following Ashley Blake's report on fox hunting. Whilst I agree that all people should be treated with respected, no one seems to be considering the brutality of killing of young lambs, ducklings and chickens etc by foxes. Most of the time this is not for food as a fox will kill several animals rather than just 1 and eat it. Don't they deserve to be protected too?

Fox hunting is a natural way of protecting these animals from a very cruel predator. I wonder if the hunt monitors have?

Anon

I have just watched your fox hunting story and I cannot understand what the observers are doing. They are making the matter worse by getting in the way and going completely overboard by making this an emotive issue.

Foxes are vermin like rates and mice and to have these over the top feelings for them is too much. I have never hunted but know some that do but I was always against the law when it was passed as I thought PM's should be spending time on real issues e.g. Iraq and the Health Service and not this country only issue. If they don't like it then they should just stay at home.

Amanda Baizley