The UK and the fox hunting ban

[Mijin]

@jtgain

Why is the expense an important part of the debate? Whether it costs 100,000 pounds or a few pence to do it shouldn’t change the debate which is: Is this particular method of hunting so cruel as to be banned?

Actually, I don’t think that is the debate in this thread.

The groups recently lobbying for a repeal of the ban have mostly been doing so on the grounds that the ban is difficult or expensive to enforce, or just “Quit picking on the countryside / tradition!”.
There’s no reason to reopen the cruelty debate because there’s no reason to suppose that won’t play out exactly the same way it did at the time of the ban.

And the OP is almost entirely about the effectiveness of the ban (at most there is one sentence which possibly alludes to cruelty: asking whether alternatives to hunting “harm” foxes).

[AK84]

@Mk_VII

That was at Camberley in 1969. After a dog that had recently been released from quarantine was thought to be rabid the police organised a drive to shoot all local wildlife mammals, using local gun owners to do it. The experiment was not repeated.

You sure that there were no I thought he was a deer guvnor, honest type incident.

[filmstar-en]

The average estimate of the number of foxes in the UK is about 250,000 and hunting accounted for only 5% of their annual population mortality (the greater part being road kills.) There are estimated to be 33,000 foxes who live in urban areas, they are very shy of people and their dogs. Most people regard them as extremely cute, we have popular TV programmes like Fox Watch that use wildlife hidden camera techniques to observe their activities.

So how come there are such a large number of people involved in fox hunting?

If you look at what actually goes on in a hunt, most of the crowd are just spectators on foot, in cars or on horseback. Hunts also attract demonstrators intent on sabotaging the hunt or campaigning groups monitoring the hunts and collecting evidence for legal action.

Here is quite a good description of the anatomy of a hunt. It is very ritualised.

http://www.nwhsa.org.uk/fox_hunting.htm

It is all rather absurd, it amounts to a lot of English people shouting and charging around the countryside on horses and with packs of dogs theoretically in pursuit of an animal they are definitely not going to eat and has little relevance to farming. For most participants it is a social event for the horse loving fraternity.

I have no problem with farmers controlling pests, nor this sort of countryside costume party. However tearing some wretched animal apart by packs of dogs is a hideous practice and that is what the ban is in place to prevent.

I cannot see politicians wasting much time on repealing this law, it will not win hearts and minds, it will just upset an awful lot of people.

[Peter_Morris]

@filmstar-en

It is all rather absurd, it amounts to a lot of English people shouting and charging around the countryside on horses and with packs of dogs theoretically in pursuit of an animal they are definitely not going to eat and has little relevance to farming.

"The English country gentleman galloping after a fox — the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable. "

• Oscar Wilde

[JustinC]

@Peter_Morris

When “fun” is derived from taking pleasure in cruelty and torture, yes I am.

Likewise, I’m opposed to bullfighting and bear baiting.

@Kobal2

When “fun” is defined as a) running horses across people’s properties and fields, damaging those in the process b) for the purpose of frightening a small critter half to death then watch it being torn to bits and c) wear silly hats and blow French horns, then yeah, yeah I’m pretty much against it.

Can’t these people just have wild, ingeniously perverted drug-fueled orgies for their fun, like anybody else ?

It’s brought up because proponents of fox hunting “the posh way” have been asserting their fun is justified as pest control. Which is a fat load of tosh and doesn’t fool anyone.

Okay, I see your points. I’m no advocate for cruelty to animals, never would go to a bullfight, watch any bloodsports or be engaged in any of them. I don’t have anything against silly hats or blowing horns, quite the opposite in fact.

I do respect tradition and countryside practices, and as noted above foxes are wild dogs and they kill many more than just enough to eat, which I see as they’re doing it in response to some impulse in their brain - possibly pleasure. IDK. In the wild animals are killed all of the time, often a predator will frighten a small critter half to death before tearing it to bits. One example of that is the fox. Now if farmer-types - in response to their livelihood/pets being torn apart - take pleasure in doing the same to them, I have no qualms with that.

[Kobal2]

But that’s kind of the point, where the “class warfare” aspect is concerned. Country-type folks generally don’t faff about with foxes. They just shoot them on sight, or lay traps for them. Which is fine, and **actual **pest control.
Salt-of-the-earth folks don’t blow horns at innocent bystanders. Except the Scots who’ll openly bagpipe at anybody, without provocation or warning toots, the scum !

The wilds argument is kind of silly, though. In the wilds dogs and cats will fuck their progeny with wild abandon ; but in polite society it’s still considered something of a social faux pas.

[casdave]

JustinC

You’re still not quite getting it.

In the past, the legislators were the ones from the upper layers of British society - that’s because they either had a vote, or controlled and bought those that voted or legislated.

That layer of society banned blood sports such as bear baiting, cock, fighting, dog fighting because they decided it was not only cruel, but also that taking pleasure in such cruelty was even worse. These were the bloodsports in which the lower classes participated or enjoyed

This is the very same layer of society that did not ban fox hunting, despite the fact that the very same arguments against it apply - in order to participate in fox hunting you either worked for the land owners, or, you were the land owners - which naturally excludes all those working class lower orders.

The fig leaf that our so-called ‘betters’ use to justify them taking pleasure in fox hunting is that its a form of pest control. This is an extremely poor argument indeed, its hopelessly inefficient, and the fact remains that landowners would set aside small wooded copses and enclosures called ‘coverts’ in which foxes could take refuge and breed. This was done to ensure that there was a reliable supply of these pests to hunt.

The silly costumes, the tradition and all that really is not the problem at all - one significant part of hostility to hunting comes from the sheer hypocrisy of the hunters - looking down on us for cruelty and yet doing the very same thing themselves.

Hunting will always exist, we have to control deer numbers because if we don’t it would be a real problem - but the object is to make as clean a kill as possible, not to chase and terrify and animal to exhaustion - instead its about patience and skill, and respect, none of these are present in the fiasco that is fox hunting.

[Martin_Hyde]

@Peter_Morris

Nobody has the innate right to take pleasure in cruelty.

Hunting is only acceptable to me if you plan on eating the prey.

One shouldn’t revel in barbarity. But killing for purposes other than eating isn’t necessarily barbaric or cruel. Sport hunting should be regarded an inalienable right, it harms no one and is fun. Society has no business banning it. Most hunters of large game in America eat their kill, for what it’s worth, though.

[JustinC]

@Kobal2

But that’s kind of the point, where the “class warfare” aspect is concerned. Country-type folks generally don’t faff about with foxes. They just shoot them on sight, or lay traps for them. Which is fine, and **actual **pest control.
Salt-of-the-earth folks don’t blow horns at innocent bystanders. Except the Scots who’ll openly bagpipe at anybody, without provocation or warning toots, the scum !

The wilds argument is kind of silly, though. In the wilds dogs and cats will fuck their progeny with wild abandon ; but in polite society it’s still considered something of a social faux pas.

Trapping or snaring doesn’t always instantly and painlessly kill, nor does poisoning. And they both can also capture cats, badgers, hares, rabbits, stoats and pet dogs. That’s not fine, it’s killing either someone’s pet or the wrong animal. Shooting can be effective but it can also just maim a poor creature, leading to an agonisingly long death. I suppose we’d have to ask a fox if it wanted to be shot and possibly killed, or torn to shreds by dogs and definitely killed.

Can’t say I’ve ever heard a horn being blown in real life, apart from those damn things at the World Cup, is this suddenly a nationwide epidemic that needs banning?

@casdave

JustinC

You’re still not quite getting it.

In the past, the legislators were the ones from the upper layers of British society - that’s because they either had a vote, or controlled and bought those that voted or legislated.

That layer of society banned blood sports such as bear baiting, cock, fighting, dog fighting because they decided it was not only cruel, but also that taking pleasure in such cruelty was even worse. These were the bloodsports in which the lower classes participated or enjoyed

This is the very same layer of society that did not ban fox hunting, despite the fact that the very same arguments against it apply - in order to participate in fox hunting you either worked for the land owners, or, you were the land owners - which naturally excludes all those working class lower orders.

The fig leaf that our so-called ‘betters’ use to justify them taking pleasure in fox hunting is that its a form of pest control. This is an extremely poor argument indeed, its hopelessly inefficient, and the fact remains that landowners would set aside small wooded copses and enclosures called ‘coverts’ in which foxes could take refuge and breed. This was done to ensure that there was a reliable supply of these pests to hunt.

The silly costumes, the tradition and all that really is not the problem at all - one significant part of hostility to hunting comes from the sheer hypocrisy of the hunters - looking down on us for cruelty and yet doing the very same thing themselves.

Hunting will always exist, we have to control deer numbers because if we don’t it would be a real problem - but the object is to make as clean a kill as possible, not to chase and terrify and animal to exhaustion - instead its about patience and skill, and respect, none of these are present in the fiasco that is fox hunting.

I’m not an wild animal-ologist so forgive me if this sounds naive, but bears, cocks and dogs are no risk to farmers’ livestock, are they? Maybe they once were, but the problem seems to have been eradicated now, unlike foxes whose population has been growing fairly consistently before and since the ban.

Foxes will eat invertebrates, birds, mammals, carrion and fruit, and because the fox can take poultry, lambs, game birds and other wildlife including species of conservation concern, it’s hunted. Not by toffs on horseback and with dogs that can sniff them out today;), but by farmers with guns.

And that’s so successful we now have 260,000 foxes in the UK, up 260% since the 60’s and still rising. There is no need to set up coverts so foxes can breed, coverts are naturally occurring thickets where many animals - not just foxes - can find shelter.

Fox culling doesn’t work and has been tried before, with licensed and employed hunters using 12 gauge shotguns in people’s back gardens. The actual best killer of foxes is the car, with 100,000 being hit every year on the road. I dare say not every one of those 100,000 die peacefully, immediately or without pain. Also 50,000 badgers and between 30,000 and 50,000 deer are killed on UK roads every year, but that’s using a utilitarian method so I suppose that’s alright?

And I a quite getting your point; one rule for us plebs and one rule for the 1%. Actually fox hunting is not just enjoyed by wealthy landowners, 320,000 people (their highest recorded number) turned up to meets on Boxing Day in 2006, participation in the sport has never been higher. It is so buoyant that two new packs have been formed, something that has not happened for centuries. So I guess this conversation is kind of moot.

[casdave]

I have no problem with the meet, he gathering and the social aspect, even the ride itself isn’t an issue, its got to be absolutely exhilarating - so its easy to understand that.

…but you don’t need a fox at all for this, much less run it down to exhaustion, as a pest control measure its pretty much useless.

So, if the fox is not needed, why indulge in the cruelty?

Sport has evolved and fox hunting could do the same if it chose, you take a look at the original football events, and compare to modern day version of it - the sport has seriously evolved. You can debate the excitement and participation of soccer but you cannot but accept that it had to evolve, and in doing so it has reached a much wider audience.

Fox hunters seem to want things preserved in aspic, all I would like to see is the hypocritical attitude put into the dustbin of history and also become somewhat more honest. Is it really acceptable that the vital element of this sport is the institutionalised enjoyment of cruelty?

I don’t even debate that fox numbers need to be controlled, but really, to actually have a real impact on fox numbers you’d need to have literally many 10s of thousands of successful events, logistically it cannot work, and it never ever has - the whole sport is predicated on a transparent falsehood, but central to it is the sheer enjoyment of cruelty for its own sake.

A good hunter can draw some satisfaction of a job well done, but that is not what our fox hunting is all about.

[Kobal2]

@JustinC

Shooting can be effective but it can also just maim a poor creature, leading to an agonisingly long death. I suppose we’d have to ask a fox if it wanted to be shot and possibly killed, or torn to shreds by dogs and definitely killed.

Ah yes. A method that might result in agony in case of a botch is worse than one that results in agony 100% of the time. That makes a lot of sense !

[Celyn]

@Kobal2

…
Salt-of-the-earth folks don’t blow horns at innocent bystanders. Except the Scots who’ll openly bagpipe at anybody, without provocation or warning toots, the scum !
…

Ah, but at least Scotland isn’t planning to repeal its ban on fox-hunting.

[Measure_for_Measure]

@Martin_Hyde

One shouldn’t revel in barbarity. But killing for purposes other than eating isn’t necessarily barbaric or cruel. Sport hunting should be regarded an inalienable right, it harms no one and is fun. Society has no business banning it. Most hunters of large game in America eat their kill, for what it’s worth, though.

Holey moley. Hey I’m all for sport hunting - it brings in tax dollars and a properly structured program can and does promote wildlife conservation and the preservation of threatened species and habitat. But it’s no more an inalienable right than stamp collecting.

A properly regulated fox hunt could be a great thing. I think it should be permitted provided it is accompanied by the Star Wars “Imperial March” Vader Theme.

[Mijin]

@JustinC

Can’t say I’ve ever heard a horn being blown in real life, apart from those damn things at the World Cup, is this suddenly a nationwide epidemic that needs banning?

You don’t need something to happen frequently, nor for its incidence to be increasing, for it to be worth criminalizing it.
In any case, it already is banned. So banning it requires zero effort, and it’s irrelevant if even no-one was intending to hunt foxes.

[JustinC]

@casdave

I have no problem with the meet, he gathering and the social aspect, even the ride itself isn’t an issue, its got to be absolutely exhilarating - so its easy to understand that.

…but you don’t need a fox at all for this, much less run it down to exhaustion, as a pest control measure its pretty much useless.

So, if the fox is not needed, why indulge in the cruelty?

Sport has evolved and fox hunting could do the same if it chose, you take a look at the original football events, and compare to modern day version of it - the sport has seriously evolved. You can debate the excitement and participation of soccer but you cannot but accept that it had to evolve, and in doing so it has reached a much wider audience.

Fox hunters seem to want things preserved in aspic, all I would like to see is the hypocritical attitude put into the dustbin of history and also become somewhat more honest. Is it really acceptable that the vital element of this sport is the institutionalised enjoyment of cruelty?

I don’t even debate that fox numbers need to be controlled, but really, to actually have a real impact on fox numbers you’d need to have literally many 10s of thousands of successful events, logistically it cannot work, and it never ever has - the whole sport is predicated on a transparent falsehood, but central to it is the sheer enjoyment of cruelty for its own sake.

A good hunter can draw some satisfaction of a job well done, but that is not what our fox hunting is all about.

I’ve been reading, for a few weeks, ‘The Day the Universe Changed’ by James Burke; a lengthy historical book about (mostly) scientific and philosophical evolutions, from the 11th century up to the 20th. I’ve just got to the early 18th century in England and land is being taken away from the commoners, in favour of the landed gentry, serfdom is being introduced on a wide scale, common land is being appropriated by the 2% for ‘agricultural advancement’ and to replace the hunter-gatherer way of life with employment as the only means to sustain your and your family’s lives. Very interesting, and something that we never covered in history in my school. I expect my layman’s (lack of) knowledge of this part in history certainly has some bearing on my views on fox hunting.

I also just looked it up online and see it was made into a TV series; once I’ve finished the book I’ll watch that. I can’t say my opinions will totally change but after seeing several of Adam Curtis’s series as well as many other BBC historical documentaries - such as Alan Little’s ‘The New Ottomans’ and ‘The Ascent of Man’ - I may come back with a different point of view.

@Kobal2

Ah yes. A method that might result in agony in case of a botch is worse than one that results in agony 100% of the time. That makes a lot of sense !

Yes, we’d have to ask the fox that! Just as we can’t ask fish whether being captured in nets or on a line, or cows being bred to eat, or chickens having their heads cut off whilst being suspended upside down is much fun, nor can we ask a fox if being hunted or shot is better.

This is a hypocrisy I see in the argument that fox hunting is so much worse than breeding animals just to slaughter them for their meat. Also agriculture replaces a fox’s natural predators with humans, which is probably why they’ve prospered so well recently. If the Lynx still roamed wildly, foxes would still be ripped to shreds, but just by a different animal. If the fox was a tasty hors-d’oeuvre, no doubt we would breed them in captivity to farm their flesh.

@Measure_for_Measure

Holey moley. Hey I’m all for sport hunting - it brings in tax dollars and a properly structured program can and does promote wildlife conservation and the preservation of threatened species and habitat. But it’s no more an inalienable right than stamp collecting.

A properly regulated fox hunt could be a great thing. I think it should be permitted provided it is accompanied by the Star Wars “Imperial March” Vader Theme.

To me that’s what the horn-blowing is. I’m not ‘for’ fox hunting at all, rather I’m against the banning of a practice in the countryside which has been going on for 400 years. There must be a good reason for that, surely?

@Mijin

You don’t need something to happen frequently, nor for its incidence to be increasing, for it to be worth criminalizing it.
In any case, it already is banned. So banning it requires zero effort, and it’s irrelevant if even no-one was intending to hunt foxes.

As proved above, the banning of fox hunting - just like the ‘War on Drugs’ and prohibition, has had the opposite effect. If I was really for fox hunting (I’m not, I’m against the banning of age-old practices, practiced by people who know better than I) I should probably be in favour of the ban.

[Haberdash]

@casdave

In the past, the legislators were the ones from the upper layers of British society - that’s because they either had a vote, or controlled and bought those that voted or legislated.

…

This is the very same layer of society that did not ban fox hunting, despite the fact that the very same arguments against it apply - in order to participate in fox hunting you either worked for the land owners, or, you were the land owners - which naturally excludes all those working class lower orders.

The Tories are laughing all the way to Downing Street over what you still don’t realize, which is the entire debate over “animal rights” and symbolic nonsense issues like fox hunting is exactly what makes Labour look so out-of-touch and void of credibility on its populist economic message. Every minute spent arguing about foxes is like gold to the Conservatives’ election prospects. It worked quite well for them a few weeks ago. No one who is looking for work or trying to meet a family budget cares either way about foxes.

[casdave]

IIRC, fox hunting was never a debating point in the whole election, so, a bit of a straw man argument.

I agree that the agenda over class distinctions has become less of an issue, much to the advantage of the Tories, seems that we can have tv shows about Benefits street which purports to show what life is like on benefits - but only represents a tiny minority of those actually on benefits (where are the pensioners, where are the in-work benefit claimants, where are the Royal family?) This serves to anger those who pay their taxes and work - not surprising really

Isn’t it odd how there is no equivalent tv show for tax inspectors, chasing up the multi millionaires, and company bosses, the city traders and the like - you know, like the ones who just happen to own most of our national l resources such as country estates. We could call is something like, Tax evasion Mews couldn’t we?

You see, labour missed a few tricks, such as exactly how our economy tanked - something to do with over stretched banks that were underwritten with £1200 billion of taxpayers money - makes that £8 bill shortfall in the NHS seem a bit small change doesn’t it?

Oh, and the cuts in civil servants over the last few years, you do of course know that one of the major departments that have seen those cuts are HMRC - set to lose fall to around 10000 staff from 2005, and this has resulted in a non-collection of taxes of around £120 billion - oh, and who would benefit from that?
…and yet the city types threaten us with leaving our country if we have the temerity to actually, y’know, tax them the same as the rest of us - well maybe they should go off to another country and screw up their economy.
Somehow that sort of message never really gets into the media, I wonder who owns it, the 8 men who have always owned it, it, you know, those estate owning city types.

Yes, you are right, Labour really didn’t get their message across, but perhaps since we are rapidly becoming the United States of London, maybe they will allow the rest of us a vote for secession, its Tory policies over the years that have led to the rise of Scottish nationalism, how long before Wales joins in?

I am not surprised that Scots have decided they want nothing to do with Westminster politicians, of all persuasions.

Maybe they are also sick of the absent landowning hunting types, maybe they think they can do a better job of running Scotland from within their own borders.

When you look at it, fox hunting is really just a small facet of the class driven society that we are, and we pretend that we are much more advanced - only in some ways - the National share of wealth of the haves has increased over the last , this 1% owns as much as 55% what the rest of us have put together, pity they cannot see fit to take on some of the national debt too.

[Measure_for_Measure]

@casdave

In the past, the legislators were the ones from the upper layers of British society - that’s because they either had a vote, or controlled and bought those that voted or legislated.

That layer of society banned blood sports such as bear baiting, cock, fighting, dog fighting because they decided it was not only cruel, but also that taking pleasure in such cruelty was even worse. These were the bloodsports in which the lower classes participated or enjoyed

This is the very same layer of society that did not ban fox hunting, despite the fact that the very same arguments against it apply…

The standard response is that when hounds tear apart the fox in their excitement, it’s a side effect and not the main show. Bear baiting and cock fighting, in contrast, involves a more intentional form of animal cruelty. Due to my ignorance I’m not 100% convinced by this retort, but I think it needs addressing. Specifically, do fox hunters typically enjoy the sight of the final kill? I’m guessing that’s not the primary motive. (WAG.)

The ban on fox hunting reminds me a lot of the campaign against fur – and the lack of a campaign against leather coats. This American has little against fox hunting in the abstract, though if I lived in the UK I think I’d find some of these traditions laden with obnoxiousness. But I don’t live in the UK, and I can’t see how a fox hunt is more cruel than what prey routinely encounter in nature.

JustinC: the above link claims that modern fox hunting only dates from the 19th century, though the general schtick goes back a lot further. But the general schtick hasn’t been banned, just regulated. So this doesn’t seem to me to be an attack on particularly old tradition.

[Kobal2]

@JustinC

This is a hypocrisy I see in the argument that fox hunting is so much worse than breeding animals just to slaughter them for their meat.

The butcher doesn’t do it to get his rocks off.

Also agriculture replaces a fox’s natural predators with humans, which is probably why they’ve prospered so well recently.

True, agriculture was only introduced in the UK in the past 20 years and…

[Ludovic]

@JustinC

I’ve been reading, for a few weeks, ‘The Day the Universe Changed’ by James Burke; a lengthy historical book about (mostly) scientific and philosophical evolutions, from the 11th century up to the 20th. I’ve just got to the early 18th century in England and land is being taken away from the commoners, in favour of the landed gentry, serfdom is being introduced on a wide scale, common land is being appropriated by the 2% for ‘agricultural advancement’ and to replace the hunter-gatherer way of life with employment as the only means to sustain your and your family’s lives.

Was this a sci-fi book? Serfdom being introduced in the 18th century? hunter-gatherers at any historical time in England?