ONCE again, Mr Pilkington (Your Letters, August 4) avoids the issue. Banning hunting has nothing to do with ethnic cleansing, nor do arguments about rights to employment have any relevance to this issue. Hunting is about people killing animals for "sport".

He states that people "of my ilk" imagine that the natural world is like "Bambi's happy wonderland . . . where even the wildest of animals are turned into furry little people". This is simply ridiculous.

I am well aware that nature is cruel and that animals cause suffering and kill each other, sometimes for food, sometimes for pure amusement. To suggest that human beings join in the fun and abuse animals in whatever way they wish is another issue entirely.

Mr Pilkington implies that I am angry and self-deluded. He is right on one count. People who cause suffering to animals make me angry. I am also greatly offended by someone who assumes to know what I believe and who makes patronising generalisations about people they have never even met.

The writer started by saying that my earlier letter was the first occasion that he had heard an animal rights campaigner say they wished to end animal abuse in the form of zoos, circuses, vivisection etc., and wished that everyone could be vegetarian. One can only assume he has not been listening.

No surprise there then!

MRS E. WILKINSON

(nee Edyvean),

Hilda Avenue,

Tottington.