I WONDER where Mrs Sheila Brennan (Letters, November 7) gets her information on the 'obscene' bloodsport of foxhunting. Hunting with hounds or beagles is the most humane way of culling as the fox is either killed outright or makes a clean getaway. Other methods - poisoning, trapping shooting - are less accurate and selective.

I am sorry that Mrs Brennan is disappointed with Tony Blair for not banning fox control with dogs, but the anti-hunting campaign is more to do with a misinformed section of society saying: "I don't like it, I don't understand it and therefore I want this activity banned."

A ban on fox hunting with dogs would have an adverse effect on the fox population as well as other wildlife inadvertently killed as a side effect of the alternative methods I have mentioned, which proves the case that 'antis' are not at all concerned for the welfare of foxes.

All reasonable people can see the greater significance of the government's current preoccupation with the war against terrorism, as opposed to the banning of a perfectly respectable pastime.

JANET KIRKHAM, Butterworth Brow, Brinscall.