I am a veterinary graduate from Cambridge University (1963). My PhD and first 5 years of post doctoral research concentrated on climatic stress and adaptation to stress in ruminants. In 1970 I became Head of the Energy Metabolism Section at the Rowett Research Institute, Aberdeen, where I concentrated on nutritional aspects of energy metabolism. Since 1977 I have been Professor of Animal Husbandry at the University of Bristol. My special areas of professional competence are:

Climatic and stress physiology, animal behaviour and animal welfare

• Nutrition: characterisation of foodstuffs for ruminants, comparative studies in energy metabolism, growth and obesity.

• Environmental effects on survival and spread of microorganisms and the pathogenesis of infectious and allergic diseases in animals.

I have written or contributed to over 250 scientific, educational and other professional articles, not including journalism and other ephemeral writings. Two books 'Understanding the Dairy Cow' and 'Animal Welfare: A Cool Eye towards Eden' have been continuously in press for 12 years and 7 years respectively.

My main academic, governmental and other advisory appointments include:

President, Nutrition Society, 1992-5; President, British Society Animal Production 1991-2

Founder member, Farm Animal Welfare Council 1979-93, Chairman, Research & Development Group. Member BBSRC Agricultural Systems Directorate 1993-97; currently coordinator of sponsors of animal welfare research (BBSRC, MAFF, SOAEFD, MLC, MDC, etc.).

Member, governing body, Rowett Research Institute 1992 to present; currently Chairman, Scientific Advisory Committee

I was also a member of the original Bateson working party on 'The Behavioural and Physiological Effects of Culling Red Deer' and a contributor to the debate between the Bateson group and the Joint Universities Study on Deer Hunting.

The first of the terms of reference for the Inquiry is:

'To inquire into the practical aspects of different types of hunting with dogs and its impact on the rural economy, agriculture and pest control, the social and cultural life of the countryside, the management and conservation of wildlife, and animal welfare in particular areas of England and Wales.'

I interpret this to include all forms of hunting with dogs; so consider both the use of hounds to pursue a fox or deer and the use of gun dogs to expose and retrieve birds and other animals killed by shooting. I shall restrict my own terms of reference almost entirely to matters relating to the welfare of the hunted animals, since this is my area of special competence. The inquiry has asked contributors to restrict themselves to factual evidence. I understand the reason for this. However my submission will include both the 'scientific facts' (so far as they are known) plus established principles of both science and ethics since many of the issues, even within the restricted canvas of animal welfare, cannot be addressed on the basis of science alone.

Most concepts of morality or 'common-sense ethics' are based upon the principles of right thought and right action. Beauchamp and Childress (1994) have identified four principles for right action in the context of medical ethics; beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy and justice. The first two principles; 'do good' and 'do no harm' transpose easily to our treatment of animals. They may be evaluated in strictly utilitarian terms on the basis of the effects of 'doing or omitting to do any act' on animal wellbeing. Autonomy implies respect for the rights of the patient or animal (both sentient individuals) to exercise control over their own destiny. Justice equates to fairness; in particular, fairness to those, like the animals used for human sport, who do not volunteer for, or stand to gain from the exercise (Webster 2000).

The wellbeing of an animal or population of animals depends on their ability to sustain fitness and avoid suffering. The words suffering and stress are not synonymous. Some degree of stress is inevitable in the normal life of any sentient animal and is, indeed, a form of education essential for survival of the individual and fitness of the species. Animals suffer when they fail to cope with the stresses of life because they are too severe, too complex and/or too prolonged (McFarland 1989, Webster 1994). In assessing the impact of hunting with dogs on animal wellbeing, it is necessary to consider (at least) the following:

1. the wellbeing of each individual during the course of the hunt.

2. the risk of suffering to each individual as an indirect consequence of the hunt.

3. the impact of hunting with dogs on the lifetime wellbeing of the hunted animals.

4. the implications of a ban on hunting with dogs on all the involved animals (i.e. hounds, horses, quarry)

These principles are predominantly utilitarian, a philosophy often oversimplified to the maxim of 'the greatest good for the greatest number'. Utilitarian principles are most commonly cited in justification of hunting with hounds, e.g. that hunting preserves the habitat and therefore the fitness of the fox population. A more honest utilitarian argument would be that all animals but the fox are having a thoroughly good time; hounds, horses, huntsmen - even the hunt saboteurs. A strictly utilitarian argument doesn't give the fox a chance. Thus the argument cannot be based on utilitarianism alone.

It is to me an impeccable moral principle that humans should afford respect to each sentient animal as an individual. Beyond that, I have difficulty transferring notions of animal rights into principles for right action. I am more comfortable with the concept of justice or fairness. I accept as self-evident the necessity for killing animals. However I cannot find any moral justification for a practice which deliberately chooses to kill any animal by any other means than one designed to minimise suffering before death. The utilitarian argument that hunting with dogs is part of our culture, and gives great pleasure and employment to a number of people is invalid since it could equally well be applied to cock fighting or bear baiting. In my opinion, the acceptability of the various methods of hunting with dogs must be assessed strictly within the context of the question 'Do they cause an unnecessary degree of suffering to the hunted individuals and the population as a whole relative to alternative methods of culling?'

The expression 'unnecessary suffering' comes from the Protection of Animals Act (1911) which states: 'If any person shall cruelly beat, kick, ill-treat, over-ride, over-drive, over-load, torture, infuriate or terrify an animal, or shall, by wantonly or unreasonably doing or omitting to do any act permit any unnecessary suffering to be so caused to any animal that person shall be guilty of an offence of cruelty within the meaning of this Act.'

The anomalies created by this Act are well known. It may, for example, be used to prosecute youths torturing a cat or even a wild rat that they have captured but is not used to prosecute adults who elect to over-ride, terrify and torture the fox. This is, to put it mildly, morally inconsistent. If, a person, hunting with dogs 'ill-treats, over-rides, over-drives, tortures, infuriates or terrifies' any animal it would seem, in justice, if not in law, to be an act of cruelty. Note however that neither the Act (nor I) include the word 'kill' in the list of ways to be cruel.. This raises a number of important points of principle.

1. If an animal can be killed without suffering, then the act of killing is not an act of cruelty

2. If the conduct of the hunt and the act of killing are designed to minimise distress, then the hunters may claim that they have taken steps to avoid 'unnecessary' suffering.

3. If the conduct of the hunt and the act of killing are deliberately conducted in such a manner as to 'over-ride, over-drive, torture, infuriate or terrify' the hunted animal then the hunted animals have been made to suffer unnecessarily.

These three principles may be illustrated, respectively by:

1. The successful killing by shooting of a stalked stag

2. Pheasant shooting with trained dogs to retrieve both killed and wounded birds

3. Prolonged pursuit of a deer by hounds in which the hunted animal may experience fear and exhaustion for an extended period before it is killed.

It follows therefore that a clear distinction must be made between what the British call 'Hunting' and 'Shooting'.

In this section I deal briefly with the use of dogs to assist in the process of killing animals by shooting, Whether the hunted animal is classed as 'game' or 'vermin' poses interesting moral questions for ourselves but it is a matter of supreme indifference to the animal that gets shot. Here, as always, our moral responsibility is to minimise suffering both in life and at the point of death. In the context of game shooting this is defined by:

1. the humanity of the killing process

2. the quality of life for the animals involved directly or indirectly in the sport

3. the impact of the sport on the 'fitness' of the species

When defined in these terms, the pheasant that is reared by man in a near-natural habitat then despatched quickly by a single shot, is treated with far greater humanity than the broiler chicken reared intensively in a way that is inconsistent with sustained fitness then transported to be slaughtered en masse at an abattoir. Since I eat meat (which includes pheasant but not broiler chicken) I am unable to mount any moral argument against game shooting. The use of dogs as retrievers must, on balance, increase the humanity of the exercise since it reduces the risk of slow death in injured birds. The use of dogs to locate and expose the prey to the guns may also increase the humanity of the process by reducing the duration from the time that the quarry first senses the hunter until the time of death.

This section deals with what is, I assume, the main concern of this Inquiry, namely the sustained pursuit by hounds of foxes and deer. As with shooting, it is necessary to address three questions:

1. the humanity of the killing process

2. the quality of life for the animals involved directly or indirectly in the sport

3. the impact of the sport on the 'fitness' of the species

While the justification usually given for hunting foxes and deer with hounds is to control population numbers; the reason people hunt with hounds and horses is that they find it good fun. The majority of the human participants in a hunt contribute nothing to the object of the exercise, they merely indulge in a hack, followed, with luck, by a mad gallop cross-country. Because it is good fun, hunting has developed as a form of population control which does not seek to exterminate the hunted species but rather to maintain a sufficient population of animals in their natural habitat (in order, of course, to sustain the hunt). Hunting with hounds has therefore had a positive benefit on the fitness of the hunted animals and possibly on their overall quality of life relative to many farmed animals.

The moral debate over hunting with hounds must therefore centre on the degree of cruelty involved in the hunt itself, both in absolute terms and relative to the alternatives. Some cruelty is involved. That is self-evident. The deliberate intention is, in the words of the 1911 Act, to 'ill-treat, over-ride, infuriate or terrify' the hunted animal. It may be lawful but it is, by legal definition, cruel.

I have stated already that stress and suffering are not synonymous. Suffering ensues when an animal fails to cope, or has extreme difficulty in coping, with stress. The key questions are therefore:

• How much does a hunted deer or fox suffer before it is killed or escapes?

• If it escapes, does the suffering persist?'

• Is the overall degree of suffering caused by this form of hunting significantly greater than that involved in other forms of culling? (e.g. stalking deer, poisoning foxes)

I shall now briefly consider the evidence relating to deer hunted as contained in the reports of Bradshaw and Bateson (2000) for the National Trust and the Joint Universities Study (Harris 1999). No comparable studies have been conducted on fox hunting.

In deer hunting, the animal is pursued with hounds. The response of the deer is to run away until it perceives itself to be safe. Since it can outrun the hounds, this strategy works, at first. The animal is alarmed but copes (i.e. it is stressed but it does not suffer). However the hounds keep up their dogged pursuit until eventually, after running for (on average) 10-30 km the deer will turn 'at bay' to face the hounds, often having run into water. This enables one of the hunt staff to approach the animal and shoot it with the high probability of ensuring (eventually) a quick kill. The key question addressed but not completely resolved by either Bateson or Harris is what causes the deer to stop running? Is it because it can run no further through exhaustion or because, while still 'coping', it chooses to defy the hounds rather than continue its escape?

Both Bateson and Harris based their physiological measurements on samples taken from deer killed at the 'natural' end of the Hunt. Both groups agree that in deer killed after hunts lasting more than 2h, glycogen reserves were exhausted and they could no longer achieve the anaerobic metabolism necessary to sprint at high speed. Both groups reported evidence of muscle damage. However they disagree in the interpretation of this evidence. Bateson suggests that the damage seen in deer killed at the end on long hunts was such that, had they been allowed to escape would have suffered the consequences of exhaustion (chronic pain and malaise) for days thereafter. Harris, on the basis of some very good data (although, in general obtained after shorter hunts than those observed by Bradshaw and Bateson) concluded that the biochemical and histological evidence of muscle pathology was no more severe than that observed in heavily exercised horses, marathon runners or footballers. From this they concluded that had the deer in their trials been allowed to escape they would not have suffered severely from the longer-term consequences of the hunt. On this point I believe the evidence favours Harris not Bateson.

Although Bateson and Harris agree that, in long hunts, the deer is exhausted (and therefore distressed) when it turns at bay, neither provide the evidence to determine how long the deer has been suffering the doubly and distressing experience of increasing exhaustion and increasing fear that escape is becoming impossible. During this period the animal is progressively unable to cope with stress so, by definition, suffering more and more.

When the Harris report states (p 164) states 'The metabolic picture obtained in this study is comparable to that of human athletes competing in such events as soccer'. This is valid only if one deliberately restricts the comparison to metabolites indicative of muscle activity. Cortisol (which is not strictly a metabolite) concentrations were much higher in hunted deer. This implies that the animals were experiencing a far higher degree of stress than that which can be attributed to exercise alone.

Harris interprets his data to conclude that 'the period that the deer are no longer coping ...is limited to the final minutes of the hunt' (p164). I repeat, he has no direct evidence for this since (for obvious reasons) muscle samples were not taken during the course of the hunt. He assumes that deer stop running and turn at bay as soon as (or very shortly after) their glycogen reserves are exhausted because they can then no longer outrun the hounds. He then states that soccer players can continue to compete with 'almost complete depletion of muscle glycogen' (pl65). If soccer players can do it, then deer can almost certainly continue to run (aerobically) fast enough to evade the hounds but with an increasing sense of exhaustion and fear for a long period before finally turning at bay. The suggestion that suffering (as distinct from tolerable stress) is limited to 'the final minutes of the hunt' cannot be justified by the evidence.

The data contained in the JU (Harris) report are undoubtedly of great value in informing the debate on hunting with dogs. However the discussion (indeed the title, 'prolonged exercise') avoids many of the most important questions even when they are highlighted by their own data. I would draw special attention to their very disturbing data on body temperatures and cortisol concentrations, both of which are consistent with very severe stress. The vascular anatomy of the deer is particularly well adapted to short sprints to escape a predator. The carotid rete specifically cools the blood supply to the brain so allowing the animal to keep a 'cool head' as it sprints to safety. It is however not well adapted to prolonged exercise (Taylor 1968).

Both Bateson and Harris accept that hunting deer with hounds causes the animals to suffer. Where they differ is in their estimation of the degree of suffering. Bateson concludes on the basis of physiological and behavioural evidence (and a more thoughtful approach to the nature of suffering) that long hunts (e.g. over 20km) do cause unacceptable suffering. Harris, arguing from muscle pathophysiology alone and largely ignoring the problem of fear, argues that the degree of suffering is not excessive, nor excessively prolonged. Since the kill is certain this promotes the conclusion, on utilitarian grounds, that this form of population control may cause less suffering overall than stalking, where 5-15% of shot animals may be wounded but not killed.

My own interpretation of this evidence is that the deer hunt should be considered in two stages.

• In Stage 1 the deer is alarmed but able to cope with the stress of acute fear by escaping from the slower running hounds. If the animal could be manouvred at this stage into a position where it could be reliably shot and killed, then I believe that hunting deer with hounds would cause no more distress than other forms of culling.

• In Stage 2 the hunted deer experiences increasing fatigue associated with chronic fear induced by the increasing awareness that the coping strategy is proving unsuccessful. This, I believe, constitutes unnecessary suffering.

If one accepts the Harris argument that deer which escape seldom experience prolonged distress as they recover from the effects of the hunt then one can argue for an independent umpire who would ride with the hunt and call it off if in her/his opinion the animal had not been brought to bay in good time. This could have a positive effect on the strategy of the hunt. Rather than planning to run the animal as long as possible, the strategy would become to direct it towards a suitable site (e.g. a pond at the bottom of a hill) where it would be more inclined to turn than run.

There has been no comparable study of the physiological stresses incurred by foxes during the course of a hunt. Since foxes are usually caught and killed by the hounds while still in full flight, it is possible that they suffer less than deer from exhaustion and may not experience the same intensity and duration of chronic fear. However, once again, these are questions of degree; questions to which we do not have clear scientific answers, and even if we had, would not resolve the moral issues.

It is impossible to escape the conclusion that foxes and deer suffer during the course of prolonged hunts. Any defence of this method of killing must be based on the argument that it is not significantly worse than other killing methods used by humans, e.g. shooting and poisoning. This conclusion is based on justice rather than utilitarianism. A utilitarian may argue that the pleasure we get from hunting can be justified if it helps to preserve the health and habitat of the fox population. Justice may decree that it is necessary to kill some animals to control the fox population or otherwise meet our needs, but justice dictates that we have an absolute responsibility to ensure that the killing is carried out in the most humane possible way.

Beauchamp T.L. and Childress J.F. 1994. Principles of Biomedical Ethics. OUP Oxford.

Bradshaw E.L. and Bateson P 2000 Welfare implications of culling red deer (Cervus elaphus) Animal Welfare 9,3-24

Harris R.C., Helliwell T.R., Shingleton W, Stickland N and Naylor J.R.J. 1999 The physiological response of red deer (Cervus elaphus) to prolonged exercise undertaken during hunting. R7W Publications, Newmarket.

McFarland, David 1989. Problems of Animal Behaviour. Longman, Harlow.

Taylor,C.R. 1974. Exercise and thermoregulation. In MTP International Reviews of Science, Physiol. Vol.7 Environmental Physiology. (ed. D Robertshaw ppl63-184, Butterworths, London.

Webster, John. 1994. Animal Welfare: A Cool Eye towards Eden. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford.

Webster, John. 2000 Animals in Sport pl50-164 in 'Veterinary Ethics: An Introduction' Ed. Giles LeGood. Continuum, London

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Date uploaded to site 31 May 2000