Britain: Almost 100 foxes were killed at hunts across England and Wales on Saturday in apparent conformity with the Blair government's new ban on hunting with dogs.
Thousands of supporters lined country roads as members of some 250 hunts rode out in anger to test the ban to its limits. And they cheered at the famous Beaufort hunt in Gloucestershire as Labour MP Ms Kate Hoey declared the mass protest "the beginning of the end" for an "unenforceable" law.
There were four arrests over the hunting of hares in Wiltshire, and one anti-hunt protester was taken to hospital after a violent clash in Kent. However, anti-hunt campaigners said there was widespread intimidation of activists monitoring the hunts.
The Countryside Alliance said the tally of dead animals was on a par with any normal Saturday before the ban was introduced, while insisting the 91 deaths - apart from four foxes "accidentally" killed - were within the letter of the new law which permits foxes to be flushed out by no more than two hounds and shot.
Alliance chairman Mr John Jackson hailed Saturday's "massive demonstration by the rural community in support of hunting" and against "a bad law". Mr Jackson said foxes and other animals had been killed "legally, so far as I know" while denying hunt supporters were intent on making a fool of the law. "We have no intention of making a fool of the law, but we have to point out the Act is extremely badly drafted and is going to be very, very difficult to enforce."
However, hunt supporters were warned yesterday they could face a tightening of the ban if they continued to test the new law. Ms Penny Little, who monitored the Bicester hunt on Saturday, said she saw "gratuitous, spiteful killing of foxes" which might well have broken the law.
She insisted government could be forced to act to close loopholes in the existing legislation: "If the hunting fraternity go out into the field and commit offences and attempt to run circles around this law, there is only one development that can occur from that, and that is a tightening of the law."
Speaking on the BBC's Breakfast with Frost, Ms Little said: "The overall picture was an absolutely shameful display of what can only be described as spiteful savagery. I saw scenes on the news which were scenes really of gratuitous, spiteful killing of foxes, several scenes which I think were quite possibly breaches of the law and will certainly be investigated.
"I think it is time the Countryside Alliance got this element under control because they believe that by a massive show of strength they can make a fool of the law. The law has been democratically passed and I am afraid if that were to happen that would be mob rule."
Denying this, Mr Jackson said: "Rural people are law-abiding people, they value the police. What we saw was a massive demonstration by the rural community of support for hunting. They turned out en masse to show that this was a bad law, that they would work within the law, they would work with the police."
Mr Mike Hobday of the League Against Cruel Sports agreed most hunts had operated within the law but said they had received reports of what they believed to be illegal activity and that video evidence of the law being broken would be passed to the police.