Gunning for the Hunt.(opposition to fox-hunting)(Brief Article)

Fox hunting is a dangerous pastime--and not just for the foxes. Ask Mark Sprake. Over the last five years his outings with the Surrey Union hunt have twice ended in the hospital. But don't blame the high hedgerows or ditches of the English countryside just south of London's suburban sprawl. Sprake's injuries--including a life-threatening ruptured kidney--followed attacks by anti-hunt protesters who side with the prey against its pursuers. "They talk about [our] cruelty but there is a ferocity and a viciousness there," says Sprake, referring to the protesters. Neighboring hunts have suffered worse. Last week the cars of a retired doctor with family links to hunting were firebombed by the extreme Animal Liberation Front in Surrey. And in Kent, activists abducted and "liberated" a pack of 47 hunting beagles from their kennels. Says Sprake: "The general public just don't understand what we do or why we do it."

If so, it's a misunderstanding that may cost the sport its future. Violent protesters are rare, but most polls suggest a majority of Brits favors a ban. That's not new. For more than 50 years legislators, the media and the animal-welfare lobby have bickered over the morality of hunting. But this time the Labour government, scenting a popular cause, has chosen to act. With an election looming, its found time for a bill that might end all hunting with dogs in England and Wales. Observers expect abolitionists will carry the day when M.P.s vote this week, despite some fierce opposition from Conservatives. It's about time, says Douglas Batchelor of the League Against Cruel Sports. "The logic is clear. Parliament will simply be extending the same protection to hunted animals as it already does to farm and domestic animals."

The hunts won't go quietly. To advocates, the sport represents British tradition. The sound of the hunting horn is as much a part of rustic life as the peal of bells from a steepled village church. Across the country, this season's traditional Boxing Day meets attracted more than 300,000 supporters, mounted or on foot. "For most of us, hunting and the countryside are very precious," says Simon Hart of the Countryside Alliance, a lobby group that's emerged to fight the latest threat to hunting. "They are trying to make a criminal offense out of something that people believe in as passionately as religion." Maybe, say the antis, but why kill foxes? The hounds might just as well follow ...