In the US most hunting is done by stealth. The hunter tries to blend into the environment and slowly stalks the animal. Then, if the hunter is skillful enough to get close to the animal the hunter tries to kill it with one shot. While hunting some birds you do startle them up off the ground befor you blast them, but most hunted animals in the US never know what hit them.
Compare that to having a pack of dogs chase an animal for hours till it drops from exhaustion.
The only concern I have about the hunting ban is that women in the fox hunting outfit are really sexy. Will those outfits stll be around?
Sorry, this is a bit of a drive-by, but someone, I think, mentioned a potential"log-jam" in the courts. This current brouhaha relates to England and Wales - “hunting with hounds” has been banned in Scotland for (I am pretty sure) over a year now, and i have not noticed reports of any log jam.
Excuse my obvious ignorance here, but aren’t there better ways than to sit all night in the cold, half awake? I think this is a situation where some good dogs would be the perfect thing.
Here in the USA we call it “spotlighting”, and it is usually done when poaching deer. Both spotlighting and poaching are illegal, and if anyone was shot, there would probably be a bunch of criminal charges filed… manslaughter, negligent homicide, etc etc etc.
I am fairly ambivalent about the issue, but I acknowledge there’s far more complexity involved than is portrayed by either side. I do think there’s a lot of bollocks talked on both sides of the argument.
The pro-hunt lobby portrays it as a town vs. country issue. Whereas most sabs I have known have been country people like myself.
The sabs I have known, however, claim that they only care about the welfare of the fox. Yet they don’t mount similar campaigns at abattoirs, where the conditions are also deeply unpleasant to the animals.
In my opinion, to the sabs, beneath all their animal rights facade, it’s a class issue.
Is hunting a fox with dogs more cruel than hunting a fox with guns? Undoubtedly. The fox is chased for dozens of minutes by a gang of baying hounds, absolutely terrified, before its throat is ripped out. It’s like nature, sure, but it is an entirely human construct.
That said, the eventual death of the fox is likely not to be more unpleasant than death by shotgun, which doesn’t guarantee a swift end - almost always a long-range shot with a shotgun, the fox may be wounded and go to ground and bleed to death, or have to be shot several times before it’s killed.
If it’s just down to the sporting aspect, what the hell is wrong with drag hunting? Why do the huntsmen require blooding?
In my Utopia I would outlaw hunting. However, I really don’t like the way the government is pushing the issue.
You do understand that a fox is known to be a cunning animal. A particular clever individual might be referred to as a fox. (Ie. Crazy like a fox.) Not that Fox Hunts are a particularly effective way to keep the population down.
Foxes are quite capable of getting over very high fences, that or they manage to find a way in some other way.
The style of Fox Hunting that they want to ban just seems so damn inefficient that to claim it is a method of pest control strikes me as pretty silly.
One person with a shotgun or .22 rifle & fox whistle (these imitate the sound of an injured rabbit) would get the job done.
jjimm I’ve shot a lot of foxes in my time using shotguns, provided you can get them in to about 30-40m and are using the proper load (4’s or BB’s) they are pretty easy to drop. It rarely takes more than one shot.
On the subject of fox hunting and sheep let me quote you part of a letter from today’s Times "…I have lived the greater part of my live in the country and I am a strong opponent of this so called sport . So are most of my friends and acquaintances here , including a local farmer , who says that no one who has seen the damage that a pack of ( hunting ) hounds can do in a field of pregnant ewes could possible be in favour of it. "
Believe it or not I have heard supporters of fox hunting say the the fox enjoys the chase . Pull the other one !