Ripping live animals apart is a wonderful British tradition that should be preseved.

[ItsAWonderfulCervix]

Let's overturn the ban. After all boxing day just isn't any fun without a few dead foxes and blood and guts and stuff.

And while we're at it, don't you just love a bit of badger baiting for variety When shredding foxes gets dull.

[catgirl1976]

I expect DSis has gone hunting today

[NigellasDealer]

if you could propose the discussion in a more measured and rational way I might be interested.
But as you already sound hysterical in your OP I do not think that attempting to initiate any kind of reasonable debate with you would be worthwhile.
Have a nice day, must rush i am off to the meet.
tuuuu-ruuuu

[NoComet]

I like cheap farm gate eggs more than I like foxes.

[Thants]

Is Boxing Day for hunting? Horrific

[BohemianGirl]

Foxes shit in my garden and tip over my bins. I sincerely wish I could poison the fuckers - however that would harm cats and other animals in the area. Skanky, mangy, flea ridden diseased fuckers.

[TidyDancer]

How is the OP hysterical?

I have never understood why anyone would enjoy hunting of any kind.

[NigellasDealer]

i will tell you what is horrific and that is factory farmed turkeys.

[delilahlilah]

What Nigellasdealer said I'm afraid. To disagree with something you need to get your facts straight rather than a hysterical, factually incorrect thread.

[NigellasDealer]

she sounds hysterical in her choice of words and in that she has attempted to open a 'debate' using loaded imagery and vocabulary that makes her 'stance' very clear.

[olidusUrsus]

It was a little, um, provocative. But we're already into the factory farmed meat fallacy so I don't think it was ever going to be a reasoned discussion from either side...

[pippitysqueakity]

being cross with foxes for being vermin, does not necessarily mean the next step is pro hunting, surely?

[WorraLiberty]

Culling is absolutely necessary for many reasons and should be done as humanely as possible. I think most people get that.

What many people don't get is the minds of those who delight in it, all the thigh rubbing and back slapping etc.

The death of any animal is hardly a cause for celebration...well not to most decent people anyway.

[NewYearsHeave]

I'm interested in your knowledge of rural affairs, animal husbandry and other issues around the subject of hunting. If you have that, I'm interested in the debate. If not, then I'm not.

[NigellasDealer]

damn i really wasn't going to get into this one!!
really must go, have to go and get my car started.
I do wish my daughter could have gone to the meet today.
btw in the lanes round here you often see shot badgers that the farmers have killed and then artfully arranged by the side of the road to make their deaths look accidental.
that is because there are too many of them and they bite the heads off lambs.

[delilahlilah]

Tidy - enjoyment is not relevant. The purpose of it is the salient point. There are too many foxes - hence the scrawny, starved ones in city centres. The foxes entering houses are the result of this. They also ruin livelihoods, hunting is used to cull them. A hunted Fox is not usually ripped apart, Antis like to use the image to provoke hysterical outrage. People economists facts are more measured in their disagreement, as a rule.

[TidyDancer]

That's not hysterical to me. Nothing the OP has said is untrue or even exaggerated.

This is a subject auto agenda driven for different reasons to have any kind of sensible debate. People who are upset and anti-fox hunting will be called names and made fun of and belittled, and those who like hunting will defend it to the bitter end because they enjoy those kind of things.

[NigellasDealer]

the thigh rubbing and back slapping
have never noticed anyone rubbing their thighs at a hunt.

[fishybits]

Personally I much prefer it when farmers shoot and injure perfectly healthy foxes which then take days to die. Far better to do that then to remove the old and ill foxes who are more likely to prey on livestock.

[TidyDancer]

too agenda driven....iPad issues.

[delilahlilah]

Economists? Wtf? People who are aware of the facts

[olidusUrsus]

Yy Tidy. Unfortunately this debate is one that never seems to progress.

[LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726]

What Worra said; this is not about culling but is all about bloodthirst and thigh-rubbing (how I love that phrase!).

Animals are culled as a matter of course; nobody seems to chase any other type of animal around the countryside to achieve that. It's outdated and ridiculous.

Nigella - aren't they waiting for you by now? You said you were going...?

[WorraLiberty]

have never noticed anyone rubbing their thighs at a hunt.

Which is neither here nor there really is it?

The reason they're at the hunt in the first place is because they're there to celebrate the death of an animal, and get the 'thrill' the hunt provides them with.

Maybe they should ask themselves why death makes them so excited?

[pinkyredrose]

Fox hunting doesn't involve 'live animals being ripped apart' . If you knew anything about it you'd know that.

Plus foxes not being killed by hunting doesn't save foxes. They will still be culled, did you know that?

[Bombus]

btw in the lanes round here you often see shot badgers that the farmers have killed and then artfully arranged by the side of the road to make their deaths look accidental.
that is because there are too many of them and they bite the heads off lambs

I can believe your first sentence, but your second sentence is incorrect and makes you sound completely naive.