"I have never followed a hunt"
Richard Dodd, Countryside Alliance Regional Director, Northern Echo, February 26, 2005

"There are so few people who actually hunt that banning the sport would be of no consequence"
Mal Treharne (Spokesperson for the Countryside Alliance, South West), Express and Echo, January 2001

"We killed four foxes today, a lot of fun"
Graeme Worsley, joint master of the Old Surrey Burstow and West Kent Hunt. (Daily Mirror, February 18, 2005)

'Feelings are running high. People are starting to realise a ban might happen and people might get assassinated.'
Otis Ferry, joint master of the South Shropshire hunt (The Observer, November 7, 2004)

"I do not want to see any violence or threats, but if people want to protest and throw a few eggs at his car I have no problem with that."
Alison Hawes, South West regional director of the pro-hunting Countryside Alliance speaking after Exeter mp Ben Bradshaw was pelted with eggs by pro-hunt supporters during a ministerial visit. The junior environment minister had to be driven away by police in a riot van. (Exeter Express & Echo, 8.10.04)

"Every time I see the Countryside Alliance's contorted faces, I redouble my determination to abolish foxhunting."
Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott (Labour Party conference, 25th September 2000)

"The hunting of foxes is undeniably cruel..."
Pro-Hunt Daily Telegraph editorial - 18th February 2005

"...Everyone is so busy to defend hunting they keep talking about how their only motivation is to control foxes. In fact very few of us hunt for that reason (somewhat altruistic to spend thousands of pounds on horse, kit, etc., to help out some farmers most of us hardly know.) In fact we go because we enjoy it - whether its for the ride, or for the friendship, or the hound work (or even the body chocolate). In the loopholes, the reason we CAN hunt over so much of the country is that farmers are keen on anything that kills foxes..."
Janet George on the Foxhunter email list, 1997

"When one of Mr Bailey's pack reaches retirement age, usually about 5 years old, he shoots it and feeds it to the others. This practise, according to a hunt aficionado, is apparently to 'give the hound one last run'. In the stomach of his chums." Jim White on the VWH, Independent, 14 February 1997

"It [foxhunting] is about as terrifying as a small boy being chased off a farmer's land for scrumping apples" John Jackson, Chairman Countryside Alliance, The Guardian, 7 September 2002

"There is no way that you can get away from the fact that field sports are cruel"
 Max Hastings, pro-hunt journalist and bloodsport fanatic, LBC Radio, 6th November 1990

"Of course Stag hunting is cruel"
Paddy Groves, Joint Master of the Quantock Staghounds. Somerset County Gazette, November 5th, 1999

"Everyone seems opposed to foxhunting"
Arnold Greenhalgh, Master of the Holcombe Hunt, Lancashire Evening Telegraph, January 2001

"When one of Mr Bailey's pack reaches retirement age, usually about 5 years old, he shoots it and feeds it to the others. This practise, according to a hunt aficionado, is apparently to 'give the hound one last run'. In the stomach of his chums."
Jim White on the VWH, Independent, 14 Feb 1997

The claim that the defence of hunting is part of a wider campaign to defend the countryside is a campaign tool designed for public relations reasons. Janet George the Countryside Alliance’s former Chief Press Officer has confirmed this view: After her dismissal by the Alliance she stated that the strategy was to ‘wrap up hunting in the rural fabric, because everyone hates hunting and loves the countryside'.

On February 20th 1987, in the TV programme "Face the Public", Chris Ogilvie, huntsman of the Coniston Foxhounds, a fell pack, was asked about his foxhunting activities. He stated 'I don't hunt foxes to control them and neither does any hunting person'. At this the programme's host interjected with a series of short questions.

Host: "So what do you hunt them for?"
Chris Ogilvie: "We hunt them for sport"
Host: "…for enjoyment?"
Chris Ogilvie: "Yes"
Host: "For pleasure?"
Chris Ogilvie: "Yes….for pleasure"

"As I have said, we are not a pest destruction society. I would rather account for a fox at the end of a good run than 'chop' it at the beginning."
Captain RE Wallace, Master of Fox-Hounds

'If the real purpose of hunting was to kill the fox, then a huntsman would draw coverts according to a technique more or less the opposite of that used.'
Source: Committee of Inquiry into Hunting with Dogs

"No hunting country will yield its full measure of sport, however richly endowed it be by nature, unless the fox coverts be maintained in proper order."
Sir Charles Frederick, former Master of the Pytchley

"Badger damage is a price that must be paid when balancing nature"
Prince Charles, Country Life, July 1994

"We are well aware that we cannot go onto Forestry land, but if a few of our hounds stray we have to go in and get them back. There's nothing we can do to stop them." Nick Gibbons, chairman of Quantock Staghounds (Somerset County Gazette, 8.10.04)

"The choice of name may have been tasteless, but it was bloody effective"
Edward Duke on naming the Real CA after the terrorist group the Real IRA. Independent, 5 September 2003

Shooting and gassing does not create that "sporting chance". Michael Farrin, the Quorn huntsman says, "People don't understand that we go out to control foxes, not to wipe them out. Where there are few foxes, the last thing we want to do is to kill them all. And we only want to kill the sporting ones. A really brave fox takes a lot of catching. I wouldn't want the hounds to chop him in the cover."
Max Hastings - Outside days - Pan Books 1990

"The science of foxhunting as we know it today, the most sophisticated branch of venery ever devised, was born in England two centuries ago. It is a legacy from the eighteenth-century squires who, in an age demanding greater speed and excitement, found in the fox, a then rather scarce villain of the countryside, a more adventurous quarry than the hare…"
The Book of Foxhunting by J Watson - published by Batsford (1977)

There, behind them, was a stag. Few stalkers would have let me do it, but I fired down into his back as he ran, aiming just behind his neck. On he went, without evident check. Then, fifty yards on the stag suddenly slowed and stopped. He walked two steps, lurched and kneeled over to bounce in the heather. He looked at me once from where he lay, as I came up to him, then that was that. Then I sat down beside to carcase and drank coffee. I talked to the beast as the sun started to appear over the hill, because I felt an intimacy with him at that moment that no grouse or trout could match. When I saw him fall, I had felt a sudden sadness and a sort of shame - not regret, because the thrill of success was too strong - but a sense of assassination.
Max Hastings - Outside days - Pan Books 1990

It is dismaying that so little support today comes from the Conservative Party. I have always believed that, when so much of the party's cash is contributed by supporters of field sports, it would do no harm to periodically remind ministers of their political debts.
Max Hastings - Outside days - Pan Books 1990

"…in an increasingly humdrum world, fox-hunting also preserves a great tradition in the countryside."
Max Hastings - Outside days - Pan Books 1990

I am troubled by the increasing difficultly in finding a market for dead pheasants. In my own mind, one principal justifications for shooting, like fishing, is that we eat what we kill. But now, amid the new prosperity of the eighties, unprecedented numbers of pheasants are being reared to meet the demand from a host of newcomers to field sports, and from very rich men for whom big bags have become as much a status symbol as they were for the Edwardians. For myself, I welcome the newcomers. The more of us who can share in field sports the better. But I am fearful about the consequences - not least the political consequences - of the drive for big bags.
Max Hastings - Outside days - Pan Books 1990

If at the case of the seventeenth century the hare was still favoured beast of venery, the fox was giving a greater sense of mission. He was verminous, the rascal of legend and folklore. By now some hunting men pursued whichever quarry was found first, hare or fox.
The Book of Foxhunting by J Watson - published by Batsford (1977)

During the eighteenth century many owners of hounds turned from deer or hare in favour of fox by chance. The fifth Duke of Beaufort, threw his hounds into covert; a fox was found, which gallantly faced the open; a capital run was the result, which delighted the young sportsmen.
The Book of Foxhunting by J Watson - published by Batsford (1977)

By the middle of the eighteenth century the huge majority of Britain was still unhunted, but, as the science of hunting became a primary hobby(for some almost a religion) among the squires, more foxhunting packs were formed. In those days, foxes were scarcer, the gamekeepers' antipathy for them was stronger than it is today. From a hunting man's point of view, foxes were too scarce, but "bagmen" could be bought at Leadenhall market where there was a turnover of several thousand every year. The best specimens were English, but most came from France, where they were a good deal more numerous.
The Book of Foxhunting by J Watson - published by Batsford (1977)

Earths were remorselessly dug up, and cubs were sold to the best payers in neighbouring countries. Masters were sometimes desperate to keep their hounds in blood and usually meant to resort to a "bagman". This deplorable practice continued until the middle of the nineteenth century, by which time there were enough foxes for all. To increase the fox population, Masters concentrated on improving their coverts, while all across the country fresh coverts were planted, especially with gorse, which was a good deterrent to cub thieves.
The Book of Foxhunting by J Watson - published by Batsford (1977)

By the 1930s foxhunting had become a nationally controversial subject. Feeling more sensitive about their image, most hunts phased out their triumph in the death of the fox: the gathering round for the ritual of his "breaking up", the "blooding" of children and the taxidermists' mounting of masks and bushes and pads.
The Book of Foxhunting by J Watson - published by Batsford (1977)

'The object of cub-hunting is to educate both young hounds and fox-cubs...it is not until he has been hunted that the fox draws fully on his resources of sagacity and cunning so that he is able to provide a really good run...It is essential that hounds should have their blood up and learn to be savage with their fox before it is killed.'
Fox-Hunting by Duke of Beaufort

A hundred years on, we must produce some better arguments.
Max Hastings explaining to fellow hunters on the why they had lost the arguments - Outside Days - Pan Books 1990