ANTI-hunting charity League Against Cruel Sports (LACS) made a special delivery this week of more than 10,000 campaign postcards to Exmoor National Park Authority (ENPA) calling for an end to ‘trail hunting’ on its land.

The league’s fox postie delivered mail sacks stuffed with the postcards to the authority’s visitor centre in Dunster and its head office in Dulverton.

The cards were signed by the public and stated ‘trail hunting’ was a myth invented by hunts to allow them to carry on hunting foxes.

LACS senior campaigns manager John Petrie said: “Most national park authorities in England no longer allow fox hunts on to their land, because what they claim to be doing, hunting a pre-laid trail instead of an animal, has become increasingly discredited and shown to be a sham.

“It is time for change and for Exmoor National Park Authority to protect wildlife and preserve nature by banning fox and trail hunting on its land.”

Exmoor is one of the few national park authorities in England and Wales which still allow ‘trail hunts’ on its land.

Ten others have policies which prevent fox hunts using their land and, in recent years, they have been banned on 2.3 million acres of land run by other landowners, including the National Trust.

The campaign is backed by the Time for Change Coalition Against Hunting, which represents 34 organisations.

Despite a fox hunting ban coming into force in 2005, LACS said there were hundreds of eyewitness sightings of suspected illegal fox hunting every year, including in national parks.

Mr Petrie said: “We need fox hunting laws to be strengthened by the next Government so that fox hunts can no longer chase and kill animals, something sadly going on despite the fox hunting ban.

“In the meantime, national parks and landowners need to deny the hunts access to their land so that the cruel and senseless killing of foxes is ended once and for all.”

ENPA said it owned just seven per cent of Exmoor and issued trail hunting licences because it was a lawful activity, as opposed to fox hunting, which was illegal.

A spokesperson said: “To the best of our ability, we base our decisions on what is lawful and do not discriminate or consider it our role to otherwise ban an activity.

“Our statutory role, in this instance, is limited to the land owned by the authority and our powers therefore do not extend to other land.

“Most land that the authority owns does not include the hunting rights, and where the authority does own the hunting rights they are not exercised.

“We are not a hunting regulator and have no specific role to provide expertise in this area.

“It is important, therefore, that if anybody witnesses any activity they believe to be illegal, they report it to the police.

“We have not witnessed evidence of illegal activity on authority land but will continue to monitor all licenced activities on our land to ensure that they fall within the law.”