Foxhunting doesn’t make a pretty picture

It’s that time of year again... when the print media tends to go soft on a barbaric blood sport. Your pictures (Irish Examiner, Dec 27) project the picture-postcard image of foxhunting, the alluring pomp and pageantry of this traditional English pastime that England has banned.

What nifty blood red or shining black jackets the hunters wear as they set off on their festive pursuit of Reynard. And what lovely white breeches and well-polished gleaming jodhpurs they wear. Not to mention all those impeccably behaved hounds scampering past cheery sightseers. Any one of the hunt images that surface in the papers in the last week of December wouldn’t look out of place on a Christmas card.

Unfortunately they present a misleading picture of foxhunting. We never see a phoraph of a fox at the end of a hunt, on the point of exhaustion, its lungs spent and the dogs closing for the kill. No pictures either of this animals having the skin ripped off its bones. Instead we have the feel good colour pieces and happy clappy snapshots.

I accept that photographers and journalists have to make a living, but no amount of whitewashing can alter the truth about this blood sport. I have witnessed the cruelty first hand and I can assure your readers that the agonised death of a hunted fox by disembowelling is NOT a pretty picture.

John Fitzgerald

Campaign for the Abolition Of Cruel Sports

Callan

Co Kilkenny