Cruel slaughter of animals is our shame and it must be stopped

SCOTLAND the brave, the land where hunting the wildlife is the sport of the depraved.

We sell our country on the beauty of our landscapes and the wondrous creatures which roam our countryside, yet why is more not being done to stop the cold-blooded slaughter of our animals for kicks?

Hunters from all social classes, from country and council estates alike, relish in the ghoulish pleasure of the kill.

This week animal rights activists released a ghastly showreel of incidents that shows foxes being fed to baying hounds by "hunters”.

It follows another video that the Record highlighted two weeks ago in which Conrad Jones tossed a freshly killed fox to dogs and encouraged them to rip it apart at a hunt in Howwood, Renfrewshire.

But there are no repercussions for these actions, other than that faced by the animal through a torturous death.

Fox hunting was technically banned in Scotland in 2002 to the relief of the vast majority but there are so many holes in the legislation it is positively threadbare.

And so while it is politically expedient to have the legislation in place it is meaningless in practice.

The "sport" is no longer the exclusive pursuit of nobility but we now have ignoble urban hunters, who hunt on foot and use hounds to flush foxes out from cover to face the firing squad of the group.