Fox Hunting - Cruelty or pest control?

The first 200 words of this essay...

Fox Hunting

Cruelty or pest control?

In answer to this question, you must first define cruelty: The Scott Henderson Committee considers cruelty to be "an act causing unnecessary suffering." So we must look at how the fox is killed. A popular myth is that the fox is often torn apart by the hounds whilst it is still alive. This is not true. Fox hounds ways between 60 and 70 pounds making it 4 or 5 times heavier than the average fox. The fox is nearly always killed by one bite to the back of the neck from a hounds powerful jaws.

Some argue that the hunt is very cruel to the hounds and foxes alike, the SES say that "hounds are put through an intensive training course, where they may be starved, beaten and whipped to gain a killer instinct which does not come naturally. Whereas after further research into this, I have found that the beagles and the fell foxhounds (two breeds used to hunt) do actually have the instinct naturally, from generations before them.

The foxes once caught by a hound are often torn apart. Alive. Is this pest control or a bloody sport,