Hunting

Gosh! Your fox must have had a big mouth to carry all those chickens Bags

Nature is capable of self-control- but conditions around towns these days are not natural at all- that is the problem. Studies done by Bristol University last 3o years, show clearly that in natural conditions, foxes regulate their numbers. When food is scarce, only the strongest vixens breed and have a very small litter- when food is plentyful, all vixens breed- and have larger litters.

The best way to control town foxes populations if to reduce the food available! People must stop artificially feeding foxes- as at the end of the day, it is the fox that will suffer if they become too many. And there should be much better control of food litter all over the place!

If foxes need to be controlled in the countryside, they should be cleanly shot by trained and controlled marksmen- not chased to death.

Many people have no idea of what goes behind the beautiful site of hunters riding out there - how the dogs are trained to kill- and killed and fed to other dogs and they do not come up to scratch. And one of the worst aspect if cubbing- how many people have witnessed what goes on in cubbing season?!? It is just disgusting and so cruel.

Having worked with police wildlife for 30+ years- I am also very aware that few people realise how closely the world of the terrier men that work for the hunt is linked to badger baiting, dog and cock fighting. The Hunts know this of course, but close a blind eye as they need the terrier men.

Correction: against another human being

Never assume anything, I was told, anniebach
Because the hunt gathered for drinks in a market square prior to setting off does not mean they would be hunting foxes; they could have been drag hunting.

Is it OK to use violence another human being because you disagree with their views and without bothering to find out the true facts? - hidden behind a balaclava?

www.express.co.uk/news/uk/554793/huntsman-hunt-brutal-attack
Note, this was a drag hunt

By the way, keep up the good work re puppy farms which are disgusting.

A large part of a fox's diet is, in fact, earthworms. Let's hear it for earthworms, folks! .... Thought not.

A fox killed all our chickens. We only found one and we suspect that was because it was too big to be pulled through the fence. The fox had taken away all the others.

I don't agree that foxes do that for 'fun'. They are acting on instinct and their predator blood is up. They have the killer instinct hard-wired into their psyche because they have to kill to eat. They have evolved as carnivores, like lots of other animals.

If a fox who has killed a coopful of chickens is not disturbed it will keep coming back for more of the corpses which it will then hide as food stashes. This has been shown on wildlife programmes.

Foxes do kill for fun in some circumstances. When, for example, they get into a chicken run, they act like many dogs will and pounce on any fleeing chicken and kill them. So there will be a scene of carnage in the hen hoise with dead chickens and feathers everywhere.

Then they will gather up just one or two of their kills and take them home.

It used to be the tradition that you got 'bloodied' at your first kill when fox hunting. The Huntsmsn would drag the hounds off, and using the dead foxes bloodied paw, put an imprint onto your cheek or fore head. This was a sort of initiation rite to show you'd been in at the kill.

Foxes do kill for food, primarily.

I do not accept that fox hunters kill for fun. I think they ride for fun and the fox-killing, if there is any, they regard as justifiable (because some people see foxes as pests, like rats) 'collateral damage'.

If mice invade my home, I set humane traps (ones that kill them instantly) for them because they are a nuisance in my house. I do not do this for fun. I do it because I regard mice in my house as pests. If mice stay outside I leave them alone. There are, in fact, many mouse and bank vole holes in our garden.

nigglynellie , protesting against fox hunting can and is often done in market squares where the hunt meet for their drinks before setting off, so you have a large number of horses, riders , hunt supporters and hounds, when one sees this one can safely assume they are going to hunt a fox?

A puppy farm, first find one, then prove there is ill trestment of animals on the premises , prove how many litters that farmer has sold, if you can do this then prove the dog didn't get to the bitch without the knowledge of the breeder, don't forget you are very likely to be arrested for trespassing and charged with several criminal offences , I have filmed bitches in a pitiful state and had the camera confiscated by the police

As for animal testing labs, have you not read of police infiltrating the protest groups?

Ask the RSPCA what it costs to bring charges against one breeder, and don't think the police are there to support the protestors please

To accuse me and many others of being selective in what and where we protest is so wrong, I protested against badger culling in England and Wales, we won in Wales we failed in England. Now in England idiots who couldn't shoot an elephant are paid to shoot badgers .

I am involved with trying to change the law to protect reptiles and I am a little fearful of reptiles ! , save the snake does not good front page coverage make. My younger daughter has her own animal sanctuary, she is now involved with cruelty to goats , something I knew little about, my elder daughter runs a rehoming charity for unwanted dogs. Not everyone can tramp fields but everyone can do something

And as for the defence of fox hunting - the fox doesn't kill for food but for fun, same applies to the hunt

Oh, and incidentally for the record, drag hunting is not illegal! But try telling that to the ' flying pickets!'

In this area we have (not me) drag hunted for decades, long before the ban with no problems at all, but now of course we are targeted along with the rest to the extent of a police helicopter being sent. A bystander was accosted, her only crime was that she had her elderly Bassett hound with her on a lead. These morons thought she and it were part of the drag and were threatening to spray it with anniseed!! FGS! I don't think a Bassett would get far on a drag hunt!! You'd think these clever folk could at least work that out!

Cont'd: which is what Nightowl was saying. And hunting has the added dimension of people actually enjoying it, making a party of it, revelling in it. Revolting. "The unspeakable chasing the uneatable"

Nice point, Nightowl.

I don't think anyone is defending or ignoring all the dreadful forms of cruelty to animals that exist - but this thread is specifically about hunting, which is illegal.

I think you will find nighlynellie that there are protests against all forms of animal cruelty, if you look for them. As Anniebach has pointed out, there are protests outside abbatoirs, at live export points, outside laboratories where animal experiments take place.

The fact is, hunting with dogs is illegal so I see no problem with protests against illegal activities, do you?

Again, commercial concerns, logistics and of course an unpopular cause overriding animal cruelty!!! Well, no surprise there!!!!

Fishing was the target of some protestors, but unlike hunting the anglers are spread far and wide, so not so news worthy. Plus there is a estimated 3 million anglers in the UK, which gives a problem to any legislation to ban it. It is also a big industry employing thousands of people.

I think that it's the riding that people find enjoyable about "The Hunt", not the killing of the fox. I honestly don't think people take pleasure in that. I think they probably see fox hunting as a necessary evil but, since it has to be done, they might as well have a good charge around on horseback because they love doing that.

I am not defending fox hunting. Whether the killing of foxes is necessary is debatable. And, yes, hounds tearing a fox apart, if that's what happens, is certainly cruel, but so are lots of other things in nature, like lions tearing impala or zebra apart.

I've never lived in a place where fox hunting is 'obtrusive' or even in the least bit visible at all. I've only ever seen pictures.

Anyway, as I said, I very much doubt if it's the killing of the fox that people 'enjoy'. I think they enjoy the chase.

Greyhound racing has had quite a lot of opposition and several stadia - including the one near me - have closed.

Talking of greyhound racing being predominantly a working class interest, so is coarse fishing! Maybe that's the reason that these two interests are largely left alone on the protest front!!! Interested in cruelty? Maybe, maybe not!

I think the assumption that those who oppose fox hunting couldn't care less about other forms of animal cruelty is incorrect. I'm sure those who don't like fox hunting also don't like greyhound racing, dog fighting, puppy farms, etc. etc. I don't think, for the great majority of people, it is a class issue. I disagree with greyhound racing, which is predominantly a "working class" interest.

If I lived near a hunt I would no doubt be very aware of it. I'm not sure I would be aware of a puppy farm. I should imagine they keep a fairly low profile.

phoenix good post in response to the OP which posed a couple of very reasonable questions by mrsmopp.

Threads about GPs being estranged from DGC, people's health treatment, bereavement etc are, imo, more emotional than this subject.

Of course her hunting isn't unobtrusive!! A great many people engage in it and even more support it, the turn out will tell you this. The problems arise from those who come from far and wide to try to wreck it by any means, not the people who support it!! Maybe they could occasionally turn their hostile attentions to other aforesaid cruelties, instead of just singling out hunting?!!!

mrsmopp I am well aware of all the many and various topics on GN. I meant that the subject of hunting foxes is such a contentious activity that raising it as a topic can only lead to such responses as my own. I contribute to all sorts of threads on here -remarkably few on the anodyne one you suggest I might prefer.

The problem with nature controlling itself is that we have been interfering for far too long.

Just look at the problem that deer cause, not only to the countryside but to their own health. We have provided them with a safe environment by eliminating their natural predators (anyone want bears, wolves, lynx, etc back ?) whilst on the one hand reducing their habitat and on the other providing them with more food by way of crops.

So we now find it necessary to cull in order to maintain healthy numbers.