[originaltext] Foxes and farmers have never got on well. These small dog-lik

Foxes and farmers have never got on well. These small dog-like animals have long been accused of killing farm animals. They are officially classified as harmful and farmers try to keep their numbers down by shooting or poisoning them.
    Farmers can also call on the services of their local hunt to control the fox population. Hunting consists of pursuing a fox across the country-side, with a group of specially trained dogs, followed by men and women riding horses. When the dogs eventually catch the fox, they kill it or a hunter shoots it.
    People who take part in hunting think of it as a sport: they wear a special uniform of red coats and white trousers, and follow strict codes of behavior. But owning a horse and hunting regularly is expensive, so most hunters are wealthy.
    It is estimated that up to 100,000 people watch or take part in fox hunting. But over the last couple of decades, the number of people opposed to fox hunting, because they think it is brutal, has risen sharply. Nowadays it is rare for a hunt to pass off without some kind of confrontation between hunters and hunt opponents. Sometimes these incidents lead to violence, but mostly these opponents interfere with the hunt by misleading riders and disturbing the trail of the fox’s smell, which the dogs follow.
    Noisy confrontations between hunters and their opponents have become so common that they are almost as much a part of hunting as the pursuit of foxes itself.
Questions 16 to 18 are based on the passage you have just heard.
16. Why have foxes and farmers never got on well with each other?
17. What measures do farmers take to control the number of foxes?
18. Why has the number of people opposed to fox hunting increased over the last couple of decades?