RATIONAL and sensible MP Caroline Dinenage (pictured below), unlike others, has proved to be living in the 21st century by airing her support for the Hunting with Dogs Act.

One of the animals benefiting from this legislation is our iconic, but appallingly persecuted brown hare, listed in a 2011 zoology report as one of our native species most at risk of extinction by 2050.

The brown hare has declined nationally by over 80 per cent since 1880 and is already extinct in some areas.

One-third of hunts in England and Wales are hare hunts – nothing to do with foxes – and polls by the respected Ipsos Mori organisation repeatedly show that at least 85 per cent of people, equally both urban and country dwellers, are opposed to the primitive use of pack dogs to pursue to exhaustion and senselessly kill inoffensive hares just for human adrenalin-fuelled entertainment.

The 2004 Act importantly also outlaws the archaic activity of hare coursing, where two fast dogs are set after one poor hare in a socalled sporting spectacle, often accompanied by betting on the dogs involved. Even if the hare manages to escape being used as a live “rope” between the dogs, it is likely to subsequently die from the crippling effects of stress myopathy brought on by the trauma of the whole process.

JOHN RIMINGTON, BSc, Technical Liaison Officer Hare Preservation Trust.