Fox hunting

[DiGiMac]

Hunting is a really bad word back home now. I'm not a supporter of fox hunting the way it is practiced today - a society ritual and ego-trip for certain mind-sets - but if a full ban goes through, there are a number of things to consider.
It's just plain silly to think that people who like to hunt foxes will be happy with artificially scented lures. That's like banning Formula 1 racing and telling the Schuhmacher brothers to buy a playstation!
So there WILL be unemployed trainers and a surplus of horses and dogs. Some people and animals are going to lose their livelihood

Also, what will the UK do with the huge fox population that will appear the following year? The campaigners say that foxes self-regulate their population but that is a process that only comes into play after they have expanded geographcally as much as possible. Well, the campaigners reckon that over 70.000 foxes are being killed per year so the first year after a total ban there will be that many extra foxes needing food and looking for it in the countryside, in farms, in villages, towns and cities.
I don't want to seem alarmist but I think that the results of a total ban could be long-term and far-reaching.

I'm reminded of the ban in the UK on pistol-shooting as a sport. The pretext was to reduce gun crime but everyone who actually knew about the matter warned that a ban would result in panic dumping and cheap black market sales. The ban went ahead and a lot of guns were handed in and sports clubs closed. As predicted, after a year the police discovered that the number of handguns in circulation amongst criminals had rocketed and the UK has since then found itself caught in a spiral of an increasing number of crimes using fire-arms.

We should always think about and accept responsability for all the consequences of our actions.
Anti-hunt campaigners should all be prepared to:
- provide homes for all the "unwanted" horses and hounds
- fund training schemes for unemployed professional huntsmen

(Do escaped convicts classify as "wild mammals"? If so, it may be illegal for the police to use dogs to track them...)

[silverhand]

Well to be honest it looks to me like a case of the middle-class who are used to telling others what to do, don't like it when they are told what to do. As someone who has mining relatives, I didn't see much support from from these people when miners were fighting to save their way of life, their communities & jobs. Where I live most miners lived in rural pit villages where the pit was the only reason for that village existing, but of course they wouldn't be their kind of "country people." The Coutryside Alliance like to portray this as city against country, as class war, but they're choosy about the country people they like.
Did you see the demo outside parliament? Nice to see the police are impartial, toff or prole they'll beat the shit out of anybody.
Don't get me started on Bryan Ferry's son, spoilt little rich kid, should get a life. Oh well rant over!

[greywind]

Hunting facts

Alarmist stuff, indeed.

Fox population - during Foot and Mouth when hunting was banned, the fox population did not increase. In some areas it went down because most hunts bred foxes and kept the population artificially high so they'd having something to chase. Most mammals (other than man) are very good at regulating their population. We won't be knee deep in them. Besides which, foxes are an essential part of the eco-system. They are scavengers. Without them, corpses of other creatures lie around for months breeding disease.

Hounds and horses - anti-hunt campaigners have already pledged to find homes for all hounds and horses that become 'surplus to requirements'. Which just goes to show how much hunt followers love their animals if they considered having them all put down in a hissy fit.

I also speak from personal experience and from family experience (of farmers and smiths), that hunts do huge amounts of damage to the countryside, trampling crops, destroying hedges and river banks, killing cats, badgers, small dogs, not to mention the number of hounds that get killed every year and the horses that get maimed.

Finally, any law that makes it illegal to hunt hares - which my religion holds to be a scared creature - is a step forward in the right direction.

[Miqque]

I'm with the modification to our second Amendment:

"Support your right to arm bears!" (and foxes)
(and, heck, bunnies too. Why not?)

I do my huntin' at the supermarket.
:roll:

[Etive]

Re: Fox hunting

I went to an agricultural college and part of my course involved the foxhunting debate. From the available study materials (most of it VERY pro-hunting) I made the following deductions about a ban;

-It wouldn't stop some people from hunting foxes
-Some rural villages would lose income generated by the hunt
-Many people would choose to keep their horses and hounds
-A lot of horsemen/women don't give a toss about the actual hunting bit and just enjoy the ride
-Less damage to farmland, countryside, horses, hounds & kids far too young to be taking part
-Most huntsmen have other jobs too/loads of money
-There would be potential problems breaking the training of hounds

A huge fox population is unlikely, I expect that foxes still get shot by farmers. I was shown photographs of dead foxes when I did a pest control course including a photo of a Vixen and her cubs shot dead for attacking a farmers' sheep. Hunting is not an effective method of pest control only one fox is killed each time.

Urban foxes are probably on the increase, however they have a high mortality rate due to road deaths. Foxes find it much easier to eat remains of our takeaway food than to kill a sheep. A friend of mine watched a vixen feed her cubs Kentucky fried chicken, at first he thought the red on her muzzle was blood but was disgusted to discover that it was tomato ketchup!

I don't think these urban foxes are much of a problem. They are a bit like the cats you see lazily hunting chips when you walk home from nightclubs.
There were stories about a white van man rounding up the urban foxes and taking them all to the lake district but they turned out to be an urban myth- it's extremely difficult to catch foxes.

Not to forget that foxes are also killed by Mange. Pro-hunt peole say that the hunt catches foxes debilitated by Mange but this disease can be transmitted to the hounds so the arguement makes no sense...

Finally, if there was a problem with the size of the fox population, they would be culled like any other species, they needn't be not ripped to shreads by hounds.

[devilchicken]

I have little doubt the 'unemployed professional huntsmen' will likely find jobs very easily. Considering the crowd that hangs out at those things...

Always found that sport more than a little distasteful - and the huntspeople's reasons for prolonging it dubious at best and rather self-serving. I mean, we're no longer allowed to indulge in badger baiting or cock fighting - and for good reason - its cruel and unusual.[/list]