The UK and the fox hunting ban

Great Debates
1

So in recent days, in among fears of the new Government repealing the Human Rights Act and a referendum on the EU, the other concern is that an attempt will be made to repeal the fox hunting ban which has been in force for a decade.

Now, I’m probably what would typically be considered someone who ought to be hardline ‘anti’ hunting: I’m a left-wing, degree-educated urbanite who tends to appreciate the countryside as something that illustrates postcards. But I try to be open-minded, and I find matters such as the fox hunting ban seem to be dominated more than other issues by feelings of emotion and class consciousness, and it doesn’t help in getting oneself informed.

Also Ricky Gervais has gotten excited about it, and I can’t stand the man, so there’s another emotional side to the debate :smiley:

So perhaps we could discuss what is the straight dope on fox hunting. I have no idea how ‘representative’ of UK opinion this board is, but if perhaps we could try to source as much as possible, and if we can, give the other side credit where it’s due an acknowledge if they have a point.

Things I’d like to know (but seem to have trouble finding a straight figure on) are:

a) the fox population pre-ban and now
b) the prevalence of foxes and their impact on penetrating the urban environment (anecdotal but I seem to encounter more of them now than I remember before)
c) the condition for farmers - are they coping? Has disaster descended? Or have they figured out an affordable way of protecting their farms without hunting?
d) and does this alternative harm the fox?

And no doubt there’ll be others as they crop up.

Also, is there some moderate, middle-way compromise that could be struck? I know that hunting hasn’t been entirely banned: hunts still happen for recreational, non-lethal purposes, but also some animals are still hunted to death, like deer, for fun. And then there’s the badger cull (and the controversies therein)

Thoughts? :slight_smile:

2

Well…according to this BBC article, the number of foxes has been pretty constant since 1980 and isn’t really up despite the hunting ban. I guess there have been a few incidents lately of people being attacked by foxes, but it seems pretty low to me (probably lower than the number of folks attacked by dogs or cats I’d guess, but more news worthy), and the BBC article says that the reason might have more to do with public attitude than numbers (basically, folks are feeding them and the foxes have gotten more used to humans).

I’m not seeing any real need to get rid of the ban from the perspective of numbers of foxes or anything like that, but maybe I’m missing something (my take comes pretty much from that one article…I know fox hunting is a big deal in the UK, but I’ve never followed the ins and outs that much so don’t really know much about the subject other than what I’ve read).

3

A very small part of the population in the UK live in what we would call ‘The Countryside’, it is an overwhelmingly urban society.

The politics of the country areas tends to be dominated by a those who consider themselves associated with the ‘gentry’, the old landowning class with links to the aristocracy.

They tend to think they are the owners and best custodians of the countryside. Whereas, the rest of the country thinks of them as eccentric, snotty characters who are clinging onto a few drafty piles of bricks and live off farming subsidies from the EU.

The Foxhunting ban was quite a fight. For an issue so straightforward it took a huge amount of time to get the bill through. There was huge opposition from the House of Lords, there were marches on Parliament and at one point an invasion of the House of Commons by no less a personage than Otis, the son of the famous 80s musician, Bryan Ferry.

At the moment, the Conservatives are on a roll and those in safe seats in the countryside would regard a repeal of the Fox hunting act as a fine trophy.

I suspect Cameron will have bigger fish to fry than this sort of inconsequential nonesense. He is trying to attract support from working class Conservatives and this would not be the way to do it.

I live in London and the place is full of foxes. As soon as the sun goes down and dogs go to sleep, the foxes come out. People like them, they are cute and shy. The idea of these unspeakable Toffs chasing around on horses trying to kill them off in the countryside is deeply unpopular. They still have hunt meetings, where they can get dressed up in all their finery and imagine they are members of the ruling class. Drag hunting, where they chase after a scent, rather than a wild animal, is a long standing compromise.

Foxhunting is one of those issues that is loaded with class and political division in the UK.

4

Any data on what farmers think about it? I get the impression anecdotally that farmers are besieged by foxes and have to commit more harmful and painful deaths on them (poisoning, shooting, trapping) than what hunting by foxes causes, and they’re exasperated by city-dwellers telling them how to do their jobs.

5

It is interesting that hunting has such different class associations in Britain compared to America. Over there hunting is posh, over here hunting is downscale. Up is down, left is right, dogs and cats and foxes living together…

6

Yes, but I didn’t want to get into the class discussion, I wanted to get facts…

7

I guess it depends on the type of farming they do and whether foxes are a problem.

Farmers in the UK have problems with dogs killing sheep and there have been big arguments over culling badgers, which they suspect of harbouring bovine TB. They live in fear of another food scare or outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease or some other disaster. Farming in the UK is pretty intensive, we don’t have the wide open spaces.

Indeed, everything is rather amusingly the other way around in the UK. We have our most narrow minded people living in small towns on the coast living out their retirement years.

8

Thing is, hunts are never going to eradicate foxes - they might speak of “population control” but they are certainly going to make sure that there will still be foxes to hunt next year.

My ex ano estimate would be that every hunt ever consumed massively more resources than would have been lost to all the foxes it ever hunted; and I also doubt that anyone has qualms over how they get rid of pest animals that aren’t entertaining to hunt to death. No-one hunts rats whether the farmers are besieged by them or not.

It’s not necessarily a class thing - hunts were keen to push the “ordinary working huntsman” angle while the ban was being argued, and they may be right - but it’s for sure that it’s an “us versus them” thing rife with Appeal to Tradition.

9

Why would farmers need fox hunting (have them torn to pieces by hounds kind) to control fox populations? As far as I can tell, taking your gun with you and shooting them is perfectly legal.

10

Wow. Brit foxes are cute and shy. When I lived in Maryland, the foxes that came out at night were anything but shy. They would kill cats and they would scream at night - seriously, fox’s “bark” sounds like a woman being murdered, full-throated scream, would really wake you up.

11

I think chasing a fox over the fields and far away with a pack of hounds, followed by a large group of people on horseback, isn’t really the most efficient way of controlling rural fox numbers. It’s a shit argument to use population control as an argument. I’d respect the hunting crew if they were a bit more upfront about it being a lot of fun.

12

UK foxes (at least rural ones) also make blood-curdling noises at night.

13

Foxes don’t seem to mind the (sub)urban environment around here. I’ve seen a fox and two kits parading around in broad daylight.

Too bad badgers don’t have as strong a lobby as foxes.

14

The concern I’d heard is that, yes, they could, but not all farmers are crack shots, and are more likely to maim than to kill instantly, and if the banning of hunting with dogs was to end misery for the fox, have we actually increased it?

15

It depends on the type of farmer. The ones who make their living growing cabbages are more afraid of rabbits, and are very happy to have foxes on their land keeping pests under control.

16

[QUOTE=Baron Greenback]
I think chasing a fox over the fields and far away with a pack of hounds, followed by a large group of people on horseback, isn’t really the most efficient way of controlling rural fox numbers. It’s a shit argument to use population control as an argument. I’d respect the hunting crew if they were a bit more upfront about it being a lot of fun.
[/QUOTE]

Aye, that’s pretty much my take on it as well. Foxes may or may not be a problem, and if they are that’s what game wardens are for. Trying to use the fox population as an excuse to bring back the whole chinless pageantry is bovine manure.

17

According to The Economist, the ban has not actually made much of a difference in terms of numbers of hunts per year, thanks to all the exceptions / loopholes.

However, they then use this as the primary argument for repealing the law, which is among the worst arguments they’ve ever printed IMO.

18

I do have to ask whether you have any idea of the demographic make up of many hunts? I know it is used as a shorthand for the aristocracy but those people I know who go (or have gone) hunting are farm workers, factory workers, a mechanic, a sewing machinist and a garden shop assistant.
It is a perfectly normal pursuit in the countryside for a working person who also likes to ride horses.

Of course it is far easier to paint the hunts in a bad light overall if you create an impression of the “chinless wonders and hooray Henriettas” riding roughshod over the peasants whilst whipping an orphan.

You should be able to make a point for or against the cruelty of a practice without the ad-hominem.

19

I’m not much invested in the cruelty angle - but fox hunting the “traditional” way is ridiculously wasteful (inefficient, if you prefer), not to mention a lot more destructive than one stupid fox would be.
I don’t care who does it, and it really doesn’t matter to me one bit whether it’s a bona fide aristo or a cash-strapped welder from Liverpool : the moment they engage in that whole silliness they *become *chinless wonders by dint of acting like one.

20

For pest control I’d say it’s pretty much neutral: yes, it’s cruel to have dogs tear up the foxes, but there aren’t many methods that aren’t cruel. However, while attempting to look up hunting club costs for this reply I’ve noticed that a lot of foxhunting tends to be in areas where the farming is mostly not livestock, and foxes are not exactly a predator of vegetables. That makes a difference as to whether an individual hunt can justify its killing on the basis of the foxes would have been killed anyway.

I’ve heard the same, that ordinary people go fox-hunting, but are they really the ones paying high membership fees (probably - I’ve found comments on hunting pages about the high membership fees, but no actual sums are mentioned), riding expensive horses, wearing expensive clobber and using expensive dogs for the hunt? I would have thought that, regardless of their background, a person doing that would have to have quite a lot of disposable income. There are other people involved in the hunt, not the ones on horseback, and some of them even get paid for their role; are your friends among those or really the ones we think of as foxhunters?

Another point against foxhunting that I’ve heard from people who live in areas where there are hunts is that the hunt will ride anywhere, even if it’s across your garden, destroying or at least damaging it in the process. I don’t know how often that happens but it’s definitely a problem.