Absolutely - YES! If you want a healthy fox population then the weak, sickly and injured must be culled and hunting with hounds is the most humane way to do this. Any fit fox caught was obviously not cunning enough!!
This is an argument that always interests me... if foxes are such a pest why do we want to maintain a "balanced and sustainable fox population"? Surely it would be better for farmers if there was no fox population at all?
Because no species should ever be wiped out completely even though I'd like it to happen to magpies and badgers! Perhaps then we would get our songbirds and our hedgehogs back as they were before the damn things were 'protected'.
Aren't domestic cats one of the main culprits of the diminishing song bird population? Along with farmer's pesticides...
But back to the question... why shouldn't any species be wiped out completely? If they serve no purpose in the food chain apart from to be a pest surely the countryside wouldn't miss them?
Its about balance. Enough foxes keep the rats and rabbits down, too many and there isn't enough food for them all so they start venturing further and killing poultry/lambs e.t.c
Magpies certainly have alot to do with the demise of songbirds, an air rifle keeps their numbers down though.