Fox Hunting

That is true GG13! Where I live a most of the economy circulates around farming and country pursuits without which there would certainly be a lot of unemployment! Sometimes I can't help but think that the issue of Fox hunting has more to do with class than animal cruelty!! The idea that only posh people quaffing champagne go hunting is SO ridiculously far from the truth as to be laughable. If you want to meet a cross section of society en masse then our local hunt + followers is the place to find them!

nonnasusie our cat was killed by a Fox our children were devastated.

There would be far fewer pheasants to admire in the countryside if there were no organised shoots. Chicks are protected from predators and their habitat is managed. Some will be shot and yes, it's a sport but it can be an important part of rural economy. The pheasants that are killed are eaten, not left to rot as roadkill.

If you have witnessed the carnage in a henhouse after the Fox has been in then it is obvious why they are classed as vermin. If they had taken the hens for food then fair game but they were left to die a horrible death. Gamekeepers can kill foxes humanely so there is no need for fox hunts.

I have had the experience of seeing a fox return five days in succession to carry away each of every five hens he killed.

How many people have cleared the dead hens away proclaiming that the fox just kills for fun?

I am ambivalent. I used to help with RDA and mixed with horsey people from all walks of life. There was a certain irony that those who enjoyed fox hunting were often the same people who would rescue orphaned fox cubs.
Scotland, where I live, has a vast deer population but only very few are stalked and shot, and then only strictly by the season and on the best managed estates has an increasing number of hares which compete with the grouse...
Another irony is we in Britain import 80% of our venison from NZ because the deer which have been running freely on the hills are too lean and "gamey" for most people's taste!
Whereas there are many deer farms in NZ. Ah well. let the debate continue. I'm a vegetarian.
It seems to be urban dwellers who complain loudest about the county dwellers and vice versa.

Hens killed by a Fox is nature and up to the owners to Fox proof there housing
Killing foxes is hideous no creature should be killed for fun with their blooding faces and their whoop whoop whooping, dreadful,, dreadful and anyone who does it should be chased round a field by baying dogs themselves
I abhor anything like this bull fighting, cock fighting, bear baiting hideous people who want to torture and kill animals of any kind p, makes my blood boil

eazybee 'Can't stand the bunch of hooray Henry's who go hunting, they're a horrible lot and typical of those who enjoy blood-sports.'

yes, the above comment is prejudiced- as there are a lot of Fox Hunters who are not rich hooray Henry's (sic) - but farmers and country people of many types.

So I can't stand the lot of them, rich or poor, town or country. Because of the disgusting stuff they get up to, like cubbing- which never gets any publicity. And all the related terrier stuff which the wo/men in red coats know about, but close a blind eye to - like the training methods used, and the killing of dogs involved, like the trapping of pregant vixen so she will raise her cubs for training the dogs, or for rich non accomplished guests to hunt with ease, or the killing of the vixen to catch the cubs and enclose, for same purposes. And all the related terrier activities, dog fighting, badger digging, badger baiting, and all the rest.

Oh, and again, the vile practice of 'cubbing' (sounds lovely that, no?) ...

Research by Bristol University shows clearly that foxes know how to regulate their numbers well in harmony with feeding sources. The large amounts of rubbish left all around, and the artificial feeding by some- is the problem

Foxes btw have a huge rôle to play in getting the countryside, and farmers, of undesirables - there are no other predators in the UK for all the rabbits, and rats, etc. Apart from badgers to a very small extent, in exceptional hungry times.

I think that unless people are vegetarian they are in no position to criticise shooting. If you think it's cruel, then have a quick peek at where your Sunday joint met its end!!
Most people recognise that most if not all wild animals will eventually die a lingering, cruel horrible death either in old age from probable starvation when teeth and energy are gone,or an injury that becomes infected, no veterinary care!! attacks by other creatures particularly Crows, Mange is an appalling long lasting condition and will kill if not treated, being run over of course and left to die and on it goes! So the concept of a fox or any wild animal folding its paws and dying a peaceful death like the family dog is fanciful as it is for any animal in the wild. Nature is very cruel, but I suppose that like the slaughter house, what the eye doesn't see etc etc!
Fishing presumably is OK! Try not to watch them flapping about, especially in those trawlers ummm!!

As previously stated I am anti hunting.

I eat fish, chicken and very occasionally other animals I wear leather, as do our Horses.

It would be hypocritical of me to say ban pheasant shoots, ban deer stalking (which is a necessary cull) ban fishing etc. Especially as banning these would put people out of work.

Country way of life is different to the Townie way of life, how many of those living in towns would appreciate “Country Folk” dictating how they live?

The difference is eating meat isn’t a sport I don’t eat meat as it happens but I have done so in the past but I never ever pulled it to pieces alive and blew horns of delight or rubbed the blood of the meat onto my children’s faces and
I ve certainly never whooped with delight to see a live animal torn to shreds Barbaric and hateful whether the participants are rich, poor, tall, short, men or women
Unbelievable

GG13- and here again come the cry 'townies don't understand' - so predictable

Many anti-fox hunt and all the even more barbaric stuff attached - are no townies. Some of them hunt too- good and proper, well trained and fast.

Many Fox Hunt supporters have actually NO idea of the stuff that goes on behind the 'respectable' face.

Fox hunting is vile, I campaigned against it for years, I was a hunt saboteur. When hunting was banned drag hunting was suppose to be substitute , trail hunting is used, urine etc sprayed for the hounds to follow always in an area where there are foxes, the hound soon picks up the trail of a fox but there is no prosecution because the hunt didn’t intent this to happen .

Hounds have a cruel short life span, if any health problem no vet is called the hound is shot. When they start to age ,
7 - 8 they are shot, they cannot be rehomed, people have tried.

I have witnessed Cubbing, hunt followers surrounded the area where there are cubs, if they try to escape they are driven back, if they go to earth they are dug out and fed to young hounds to get them use to the smell and taste.

When the ban was being discussed in the house there was a documentary on tv, two girls who loved hunting were being interviewed, one said ‘the kill was better than an orgasm.

Nothing can excuse dozens of people on horse back, dozens following in land rovers chasing one animal, I have seen foxes ripped to bits by hounds whilst the hunters cheered as they watched .

During the last Foot and Mouth outbreak when hunting was banned there was no increase in the foxes.

Please campaign against it , if you saw a fox run until it collapses , the hounds around it ,the the terror on the face of the fox, the ripping apart of the animal you would

Well said, Anniebach! And I've been around horses most of my life and almost every one I know who is involved with horses is also against hunting. The two don't always go hand in hand.

I agree with your posts Jabberwok a lot of old fashioned nonsense talked about Hooray Henrys etc. I do think the fox could be killed more humanely but other than that I think we carnivores should not be hypocritical.

Fox hunters aren't all the same bloodthirsty rich people.
I have close family who are sheep farmers in the Borders and need to protect their flocks. Especially during lambing season.
They're not wealthy landowners, they rent their farms from the Duke of Northumberland.
Most of the hunting people are shepherds as they are.

Yes I agree sodapop, certain aspects have tightened up considerably round here, and for sure nobody ever bloods anyone! that went out with the ark! As I've said I'm very much on the fence. Other methods of control are very unpleasant and a fox with mange is heartbreaking. Hey Ho , each to his own!

Well said Anniebach. I abhor any kind of hunting for pleasure. If foxes (or any other wild animals) are a problem and need to be culled, then let a gamekeeper deal with them, at least a well-aimed shot is a far more humane way of killing. I am afraid that anyone who would want to kill an animal for pleasure is, in my opinion, sick.

Foxes kill because it is in their nature to do so; humans kill for pleasure, whether it is for so called sport or for food. If you think the human race is superior to animals then they should know better than treat animals in a cruel way. Personally, I don't think humans are superior to animals.

It's very sad when chickens get killed by foxes but the blame, I'm afraid, lies totally with the human who did not protect them adequately. A six foot fence is nothing to a fox, it has to go underground as well.

In the early 1980s as a truck driver, I was driving an articulated vehicle between Minehead and Bridgwater in Somerset. My power unit was hauling a 28-ton twin axle semi-trailer, and as I was approaching the village of Kilve on the main A37, I noticed several horses and riders galloping in the fields alongside the road.

Only the top of the horses and their riders were visible due to the hedges at the side of the road, when suddenly a large deer (probably a stag) jumped through the Hedge landing in the road directly in front of my vehicle and a car travelling in the opposite direction. Very startled I braked hard, and the vehicle began to jackknife with the trailer sliding sideways into the opposite lane and coming to a stop only inches from the car travelling in the opposite direction.

The deer jumped through the hedge on the opposite side of the road a was gone in a flash. The riders who were obviously part of a hunt were then forced to stop at the hedge. As I gathered myself, I could not believe that they had chased that animal right down to a main road and as I climbed out of the cab, I shouted at the first of the riders "what the f*ck did they think they were doing". The first rider turned said nothing and rode slowly away, while a second put up two fingers to me while two women riders just laughed as they rode off.

My thoughts then turned to the women who had been driving the car and had not got out. I and others then went over to find she was very shaken and upset. We calmed her down eventually, and she reversed the car enough for me to be able to straighten the trailer and clear the road.

In all the time that it took to sort the situation out, not one member of the hunt came on the scene to inquire as to the welfare of that women, myself and any of the others that were on the road at that time.

The incident was reported on the local television news next night, where the hunt master stated he was sorry, but "these things happen in the heat of a chase."

Since that day, my thoughts and feelings on those that take part in these outdated rituals can be summed up in one word, "BAST*RDS."

jura2 Did you read my post - I have said repeatedly that I personally am anti fox hunting!!

"The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable".
Oscar Wilde's judgement of the hunting set.

My DM used to boast that her grandfather hunted with the Quorn and was quite put out when I quoted Wilde on the subject.

Yes I lived in Devon when the children were still in a prom. Every afternoon we went out around the country lanes for our constitutional. Baby in pray and toddler on prom seat. I have one of those big silver cross prams.
The hunt came down the lane and simply didn’t stop, but pushed me into the hedge, my daughter screamed in fright. Not one of them stopped or even gave any recognition that I was there. It was like something out of the seventeenth century.

Not pray - pram!!