NATIONAL animal welfare charity the League Against Cruel Sports will be making a special delivery of more than 10,000 campaign postcards to Dartmoor National Park Authority calling for an end to fox or ‘trail’ hunts using its land.

A campaigner from the group, dressed in a 

a fox costume as Postman Pat, complete with his red van, black and white cat and mail sacks stuffed with postcards, will visit Haytor on Tuesday, April 30 at 11am.

The postcards have been signed by members of the public and claim trail hunting is a ‘myth’ invented by hunts so they can carry on hunting foxes.

Dartmoor National Park Authority is one of three national park authorities in England and Wales which still allows hunts on their land, the league says.

Ten other national park authorities have policies which prevent fox hunts from using their land.

Trail hunting was recently described by Chief Supt Matt Longman, the most senior police officer in England with responsibility for fox hunting crime, as a ‘smokescreen for illegal fox hunting’.

The campaign is backed by the Time for Change Coalition Against Hunting, representing 34 animal welfare and environmental organisations.

Despite a fox hunting ban coming into force in 2005, the League Against Cruel Sports compiles reports claiming hundreds of eyewitness sightings of suspected illegal fox hunting every year, some of which took place in national parks.

The League Against Cruel Sports works to stop animals being persecuted, abused and killed for sport.