Reading the letter, "It's a class war on hunting" (Your Say, March 6) made me recall the time I spent on some summer afternoons sitting watching a family of foxes, one male, two females and four fox cubs.

The male or dog fox hunted and marked his territory regularly, the dominant female vixen stayed close to her four cubs, giving them undivided attention. The second female, or "auntie" as they are commonly known, also hunted and brought back food for the female and her cubs.

These foxes had strangely not used the artificial earth built and provided by the hunt to raise their cubs, but excavated their own home not too far away, which leads me to the question, if they are encouraged to breed in artificial earths by hunts, farmers and their friends, why do they call foxes pests?

I know no one who encourages rabbits and rats to breed, with the exception of pet breeders and the vivisection industry.

While watching this family of foxes I observed them bringing back three grey squirrels, two rabbits, one wood pigeon and a hen pheasant.

Now, knowing farmers class grey squirrels, rabbits and wood pigeons as pests, I presume this would make the fox a beneficial species to the farming industry as the pest kill rate was six to one, and obviously this outweighs any damage done to the pheasant shooting industry, the farming industry or the forestry industry.

Could anyone explain why country people breed the red fox and then call them pests?

M J Haines Cirencester Gloucestershire