MR Barrington ("Is it time to think again on the Hunting Act?", Opinions, November 2) knows there is nothing remotely "natural" or "humane" about hunting live quarry with hounds.

Everyone should know that the conduct and defence of hunting with dogs nowadays rests on cynical subterfuge.

These "sports" are designed to maximise the length of the chase – up to 90 minutes for fox and hare hunting, seven hours for deer – using slow but high-stamina dogs. How "natural" or "humane" is that? And yet fox hunting is presented almost as a kindly euthanasia society for "old and sick" foxes.

As a monitor, I have witnessed hunts of enormous length; seen the desperate attempts of the victims to escape the hounds; seen their pitiful descents into utter exhaustion; seen the hideous finale as they are finally caught.

I have seen foxes and hares struggling to escape until they die of blood loss or shock.

I have often seen a stag or a hind, perhaps separated from an at-foot calf, unable to run further, turning to face the hounds, legs trembling, eyes rolling, until the huntsman strides up and blasts it into oblivion with, if it's lucky, a single shot.

I've also witnessed the fanaticism of hunters and the nauseating glee exhibited by riders "lucky" enough to be in at the kill.

I've watched as supporters rush to the scene of a deer kill, even carrying tiny children, to witness its bloody dismembering and the handing out of body parts as trophies. Such sickening behaviour may be "natural" to the followers of these "sports", but it is anything but to normal people.

But Mr Barrington is right in saying the Hunting Act isn't working properly. It's failing partly because of lack of enforcement, partly because of hunts' ruthless subterfuge, but mostly because of the Act's lax wording and loopholes.

Hunts can carry on much as before, with little fear of investigation. Pretending to be trail hunting, many still chase quarry for fun.

Hunt supporters are, knowingly or not, conniving in what the League Against Cruel Sports has described as a "national criminal conspiracy" to flout the law.

They want to remove what little protection wild animals now have from being hunted for sport. But most people – urban and rural – still want these cruel and barbaric sports banned.

When criminals circumvent the law, it must be strengthened, not repealed.

Alan Kirby

Associate

Protect Our Wild Animals POWA