Big game link to Cotswold hunting website (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Big game link to Cotswold hunting website

A PRO-HUNT website is in the firing line this week after promoting big game hunting in Africa where giraffes, cheetahs and leopards can be shot for the right price.

Hunt campaigners behind Felix the Fox, who have organised high profile stunts to demonstrate against the hunting ban, have been attacked for allowing a link from the Fight the Ban site.

The controversy comes after it emerged the link takes pro-hunters to the website of a hunting company in Onganja, Namibia.

Game hunters are invited to enjoy an all-expenses safari and the chance to shoot particular animals, including giraffes and zebras.

The package includes a flat fee of about £150 a day and more common animals such as jackals and baboons are free to shoot.

Among the most expensive are leopards and cheetahs, which cost as much as £1,300 per animal, but the site does not quote how much a giraffe's life is worth.

The League Against Cruel Sports has slammed Fight the Ban for associating itself with such a market.

Spokesman Wanda Wyporska said: "The Fight the Ban site seems to relish promoting the destruction of the animal kingdom and the League deplores this action.

"If it isn't enough for hunters to still be abusing wildlife in the United Kingdom, they are also intent on peddling the bloody business of trophy hunting abroad. It seems that no animals anywhere are safe from their bloodlust."

Since the Hunting Act came into force last year, the Fight the Ban campaign has become the alternative, youthful website opposing the fox hunting ban.

It is run by a group who have embarked on a range of stunts, including staging a squirrel hunt in central London and encouraging people to stick yellow and black stickers on signs, which has also proved provocative with the anti-hunt lobby.

However, although those behind Fight the Ban have preferred to remain anonymous, the man who regularly dresses up as Felix the Fox was unmasked last year.

Nonetheless, Cirencester pro-hunt campaigner Rupert Sturgis told the Standard this week he was unaware about the big game company's links with the site.

He also said he had no idea who was behind the website and was only involved in a hunting fundraiser on one occasion.

He said the Cotswold-based site had adverts arranged by web giant Google, which fits adverts based on linked words, in this case 'hunting'.

However, he did suggest that if the hunting company was not only concerned with conservation then perhaps the association was inappropriate.

He said: "If they have made a mistake then they need to do something about it."