Most of the anti cruelty perceptions are arrived at by anthropomorphising the animals involved, and as most people don't even seem to be able to put themselves in another person's shoes, what price their judgement on behalf of dumb animals?

And earlier

The fox now, well he is an animal unused to predation because man has killed off all his natural predators, so I suppose it awakens and sharpens an old instinct, and the clever ones [aren't they all supposed to be wily?] escape from the hunt and continue doing their own predation on cats, lambs, baby birds, hedgehogs etc.