Pearse's family has hunted foxes for at least 170 years. She cherishes an 1831 map of Colney Heath, now part of north London, that shows the railway stations where the trains brought in the horses used in hunts.
Pearse and her partner Jonathan Dick also depend on hunting for a living; they own a business that supplies food for the 60 of the 320 packs of hounds in England and Wales.
Hunters deny charges from critics who say they form an anachronistic elite, saying the landowners who once dominated fox hunting are now a minority and the pastime is organized much like a fee-paying golf club open to everyone.
And if animal rights groups lobbying for a ban claim they are protecting the foxes, they are actually doing more harm than good, the hunters claim.
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