PRO-hunt supporters who swamped the streets of York today said that pride, tradition, and most of all employment are all at stake if the Government bans hunting in its present form.

About 1,200 people, hundreds of working dogs including 18 packs of hounds, and several horses from across Yorkshire joined the march, one of several held countrywide.

Among them were many from the North and East Yorkshire area who have worked in the hunting world all their lives.

A letter demanding a fair and open public consultation period on the Government's proposals to bring in licensed-only hunting was handed in at the city's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) offices.

Bob Hyde, former master of York and Ainsty South hunt, told the crowd: "We are sick of this Government using hunting as a useful diversion from their difficulties.

"We are sick of being the spin doctors' victims.

"Our lives and the lives of dogs and horses depend on hunting."

Among the marchers was Richard Tonks, from North Duffield. He has been a professional terrierman for Middleton Hunt, near Malton, for ten years, after working as a miner for 21 years. "If this goes through, I'm out of a job. I have two young children to support."

He explained his job was to put the terrier in when the fox goes to ground at the end of a hunt, but said he believed the way the fox was killed was not cruel.

"If you say it's cruel I can think of a million other things that are cruel like old people being beaten up in the street, like poverty, like homelessness."

David Randall is a professional huntsman who has worked for the Badsworth Hunt, which hunts between Selby, Doncaster and Leeds, for 42 years.

He said: "It's a way of life for me. I've lived in the country all my life and if it was cruel I wouldn't do it.

"I'm proud of what I do, I'm a countryman. I wouldn't be cruel to a wild animal at all. I'm convinced the fox doesn't know what is going to be done until the second before it happens, and then it's over in a second. It's more cruel to shoot."

Farmer Andrew Brown, from Saltersgate Farmers' Hunt, near Pickering, said: "Our livelihood and everything is being jeopardised by the Government.

"It's a necessary thing to do. The fox doesn't get wounded. You kill the fox or you don't."

Kenneth Hall, of Ryther, from Old Yorkshire Coursing Club, said his only hobby from childhood had been hare coursing, a pursuit which he said sometimes led to hares being killed, but he said never cruelly.

Updated: 15:09 Friday, April 12, 2002