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		Letter to the Editor Northamptonshire Chronicle - Thursday, 30th September 2004 Dear Sir, Mr. S.J. Church writes (29.09) that he doesn't know whether I'm in favour of fox-hunting. I should have thought that the fact I apologised to hunt supporters for failing to join them in Parliament Square might have given him a hint, but let me spell it out. Yes, I'm in favour of fox-hunting. Why? Foxes have to be culled, and hunting with hounds is the most humane culling method, because unlike all other methods it never leaves an injured fox to a lingering death. Hunting also promotes the health of the fox population by preferentially taking old or sick foxes. And hunting gives landowners an incentive to tolerate a controlled fox population. Without it, foxes are merely damaging vermin, and risk being shot, gassed, poisoned, snared and trapped to extinction. I am aware that there was some crowd trouble at the event in London, and there are suggestions that some of this came not from hunt supporters, but from professional agitators looking for a scrap. The great majority of hunt supporters are instinctively law-abiding, decent people, and would not choose to demonstrate unless provoked intolerably. It was clear from the media coverage that the police behaviour was disproportionate and reprehensible. I can well understand the frustration of hunt supporters who in the last few years have staged some of the biggest -- and most peaceful -- protests that London has ever seen. Yet this pig-headed government, and the rabid class-warriors on its back-benches, refuse to listen. I have no doubt that if they press ahead with a ban we shall see a great deal more trouble, and more broken heads. Yours faithfully, Roger Helmer MEP