HARD to believe it’s ten years this month since the hunting ban came into force. Earlier that winter I photographed the hunt meet in my village, thinking it would be the last. But the hunt’s been here every winter since, always attracting, I notice, a sizeable contingent of child riders. The hunt might be in better shape for the future than local cricket teams.

Across the country, hunts proudly point to increased turn-outs. Ah, but not to hunt, surely? Today’s hunters merely follow a drag trail. Since this seems to have increased hunting’s appeal, you might suppose the hunting fraternity would be well satisfied with the way things have worked out. But no, they are still pressing for a repeal of the ban.

That’s a surprise - an inconsistency if you like – on their side. What of the anti-hunters? The League Against Cruel Sports proclaims the Hunting Act “the most successful piece of wild-animal welfare legislation in history.” That’s despite the fact that a mere six per cent of the 237 convictions under the Act – a modest-enough total in itself – involved registered hunts, rather than casual poachers.

It’s also despite the likelihood that much traditional hunting, or something close to it, still goes on. Tim Bonner, director of campaigns for the Countryside Alliance, admits: “We use whatever opportunities we can to keep the tradition alive without breaking the law.”

A full pack of hounds can still be used to flush out a fox towards a bird of prey, which some hunts now carry. Its presence can be a useful cover if the hounds make the kill. Hunters have also adopted a technique of “holding back”, keeping well behind hounds about to kill. This allows them to say they didn’t know this “accident” was going to happen.

According to a YouGov poll, support for the hunting ban has fallen from 61 per cent at the outset to 51 per cent. Of course, polls can be wrong and this apparent decline in the opposition to hunting goes against what been a growing concern for the welfare of animals, domestic and wild, for well over a century.

I believe that if the ban is ever repealed – turning the clock back to chasing an animal to death - it will trigger violence in the countryside. Sooner or later hunting would again be banned, more strictly than before, because that’s the way history is flowing. Since fox-hunting hasn’t fully ceased, the present, botched, law really is the best the hunters can hope for or, in their own interests, should want. For the opposition, tighter would be better.

Meanwhile, particularly welcome would be an end to the hunters’ ludicrous claim, newly reiterated by Sir Barney White Spunner, executive chairman of the Countryside Alliance, that the ban is a class issue. He declares: “The Act has got absolutely nothing to do with cruelty to animals. It has to do with a group of MPs who didn’t like the people who hunt.”

Absolute tosh, Sir Barney. It has to do with most people disliking the idea of an animal being subjected to prolonged terror to the point of exhaustion, when it is torn apart by a pack of dogs. All for sport, for heaven’s sake. Lay the drag trail, Sir Barney, and count yourself lucky.