Pity the fox (From York Press)

Pity the fox

9:49am Tuesday 7th November 2006 in Letters By Reader's letter

BY one of those quirky coincidences, the day I read JD Ellerton's letter (Shock at fate of fox left shot in lane, Letters, October 30), I had just heard on the radio a member of the Countryside Alliance, who was airing his views on the foxhunting ban and its consequences.

He seemed to take pride in the fact that more foxes were being killed since the ban, "by whatever means" (his words). It seems to me that this animal, as JD Ellerton rightly says, is part of wildlife, but is still being persecuted, but more vigorously, for the mere fact that these people, having been thwarted in their efforts to cruelly tear it to pieces, are now determined to kill as many foxes as possible for the sheer hell of it, just to make a point by shooting (I dread to think what other means they have at their disposal).

Is it not ironic that, with Christmas coming up, one of God's creatures, the fox, is depicted on cards against a backdrop of snow, as a symbol of natural beauty, and sent as a gesture of peace and goodwill which, thanks to the Countryside Alliance, there will never be for this poor maligned creature?

W P Carter, Marston Crescent, Acomb, York.