No, and the legislation should not be extended to "hunting with dogs", either.

Many anti-hunting people own cats; ever met a healthy vegetarian cat or tried to stop one from hunting to supplement its diet?

If a dog-owner is walking his pet, and it chases, catches and kills a rabbit, are owner and dog to be criminalised? Not in any sensible society, but Britain is seldom sensible where animals are concerned.

If I remember rightly, Scotland has already enacted the legislation to ban all hunting with dogs. Has there been an increase in the number of ferrets kept as pets up there? Not that a ferret is much use against a fox.

Knee-jerk emotion-based legislation is almost always bad legislation. For examples, just consider the "fighting dogs" and handgun laws here in the UK, and some of the "anti-terrorist" measures enacted or proposed since 9/11 in the US.

However, I fear that foxhunting will soon be banned here, with further damage to rural communities already reeling from the after-effects of foot and mouth disease. Urban "animal lovers" may feel differently in time, when increasing numbers of foxes have left the countryside and moved into the suburbs in search of easier pickings, raided dustbins, crapped all over gardens and killed beloved moggy.

When they've done with foxhunters, their next target will be anglers. After that .....

Alan (neither foxhunter or petowner, but angler and hunter with rifle)