A leading anti-bloodsport group has accused the Countryside Alliance of exaggerating the number of hunt supporters who attended Boxing Day meets. Protect Our Wild Animals (POWA) believe the group intentionally inflated the figures in a bid to give a false impression of the strength of support for hunting as Parliament prepares to vote on the issue later this year. The Countryside Alliance (CA) claimed that as many as 275,000 people went out on Boxing Day nationwide to support the annual hunt whereas POWA believe the true figure was closer to 100,000. The anti-hunting group came to the conclusion after scouring local press reports on each of the hunts and comparing the attendance figures reported in the newspapers with the figures released by the Countryside Alliance. According to POWA, the CA appeared to have derived their national total 275,000 from a sample of 36 meets whereas POWA used 46 "independent" sources. Guesstimating that "hundreds" means on average 350 and "several hundred" was around 650, the total for these 46 hunts is roughly 20,500, giving an average of 446 per meet, according to POWA. Examples highlighted by POWA include claims by the CA that up to 1,750 hunt supporters followed the hunt at Croome in Worcestershire whereas local media reported just 600 in attendance. At the Worcestershire hunt the CA claimed more than 1,500 turned up but newspapers stated that hunters and protesters together numbered just "hundreds". Elsewhere POWA claim only a few hundred turned out at Albrighton, 700 at Atherstone in Warwickshire and 300 at the North Warwickshire hunt. The Countryside Alliance also claimed there were 350 Boxing Day meets, but their own Campaign for Hunting website states that there are less than 300 fox, deer and hare hunts in England and Wales. Alan Kirby, spokesman for POWA, said: "Hare hunts attract few supporters, even on Boxing Day. The largest attested attendance at one we could find was 300. "Allowing for this, the fox hunts would have had to average over 1,500 each. But we can find hardly any independent reports of such crowds. "The British Field Sports Society was castigated by the Advertising Standards Authority in 1993 for making wildly inflated claims about Boxing Day attendances. The Alliance's claim is less grandiose, but still seems wildly excessive." The group also slammed a recent poll conducted by the Countryside Alliance that claimed that just two per cent of the public think that hunting should be a priority for the Government. "What the poll actually asked was what should be the Government's top priority. Even we wouldn't reply 'banning hunting' to that," said Mr Kirby. "But the latest scientific poll shows at least 69 per cent want all hunting banned and it will require only a little more parliamentary time to effect that." Claire Rowson, from the Countryside Alliance, said it was POWA who had got their figures wrong and stood by the group's claims that the Boxing Day hunt had been well attended. She said: "Last year nationally there were 250,000 at the Boxing Day hunt and this year there were close to 300,000. In the West Midlands we estimate there were around 20,000 people in attendance on Boxing Day." She added that the figures were compiled by counting the numbers of people who made donations to the Countryside Alliance on the day. | 
