to think that fox hunting ban might have been a mistake?

[lessonsintightropes]

I live in suburban South London and have done for donkeys. Over the last five years foxes have been encroaching a lot into our neighbourhood and have killed a couple of cats, and regularly torn up bins etc. I know at least nine individual foxes by sight. I'm in zone 3!

I was always rabidly anti-hunting on cruelty grounds when I was ill informed younger. My DBrother and DSis live in very rural Hampshire; she used to hunt and now they drag-hunt exclusively, but they lose a lot of chickens, ducks and cats despite stalagluft-style electric fences.

I've rethought my position over time and have come to the conclusion that town people shouldn't dictate to country people how to live, and vice versa. Especially when countryside vermin start inhabiting my street!

What makes me a bit anxious is the risk to children and domestic pets from a growing fox population. It's certainly made my cat anxious and makes me freak out a bit when I see something dog sized in my tiny suburban garden, but am also well prepared to listen to arguments the other direction (although I will always wish they don't rip up my recycling bags).

Would love to know what the MN jury has to say?

Manchester tony and his merry band of socialists, err since when was tony blair a socialist!

It was not a class issue to ban foxhunting , it was an animal welfare issue

Bizarerrly I imagine Tony Blair has probably engaged in a few blood sports himself

And simply because something is an ancient tradition is not a good enough reason to pursue it in the here and now. As I said before 'fagging' is an ancient tradition in our male boarding schools but that does not right or should be protected simply because 'it's something we have always done'

The socialist angle has been wheeled out here a few times in this thread which I find odd...the argument seems to be 'well if your anti hunt you're a paid up flag waving socialist, how strange

I like foxes and dont think they are vermin. They have just as much right to exist as we do.

I can accept a farmer shooting them if they threaten his animals but i wont accept anyone from any class or income bracket thinking they have a right to kill them for sport.

There is loads of urban foxes where i am and can see 3 or 4 most night when i am driving home. They are diving bins and eating food waste people have not disposed of properly. It is us who have made the problem by our own laziness and dirty habits in disposing of waste.

I?m certainly not pro hunting by any strectch of the imagination but I don?t think anyone can honestly say that the hunting ban was brought into force solely for reasons of animal welfare. Of course it was seen to be a class issue, and I can see why, a lot of braying, chinless toffs spending a spiffing day hunting down small animals. What?s not to hate?

But I just don?t understand how people can feel so emotional about fox welfare and yet happily scoff factory farmed meat, which is a bigger cruelty that effects far more animals. Given the choice I?d rather live as a wild fox and be mauled to death by hounds than live as a battery chicken.

I?m still anti fox hunting, just think it?s way down the list of animal welfare issues to be concerned about.

^ good point ^ cantspel - it is the overflowing bin that makes them so bold - remember once walking down East St in Walworth after the market and there was this fox eating stuff from the top of a bin that just did not give a toss how close I got! I even took a pic of him! it is the rich pickings that brings the ffoxes to the cities IME, plus of course the lack of farmers with guns.

The urban fox population swell is down to the vast amounts of improperly-disposed food waste, often from fast food outlets, available for them to feed on. The more food, the less competition for it, the larger the fox population gets. It is that simple.

Small birds are also their natural prey, so it is futile to expect them not to kill captive poultry.

I do not believe most stories about foxes predating upon cats. The average domestic mog is almost as big as a medium fox, is well-equipped to defend itself, and has the advantage of being able to climb well. A larger dog, with its bigger jaw, could take down a cat, but most missing cats are victims of road traffic.

agree with squoosh - other than the chinless toff bit.

Molly Dineen made a really fascinating documentary a few years ago called The Lie of the Land, about the effect of the fox hunting ban on rural Britain.

It really opened my eyes to the hypocrisy in this country, we have overwhelming sentimentality towards some animals and treat other with mindless brutality. I'm not a a vegetarian either just in case you think I have a veggie axe to grind.

Its focus too on rural poverty was also quite shocking.

good points squoosh

but (there's always a but) people who farm and eat meat don't make it a sport and want to defend they right to chase a defenceless animal to death for fun

The thing is we now have far fewer foxes in the countryside than when hunting was allowed,

because when the ban came in, the shooting started, it is really easy to shoot a fox, the reason landowners left them before the ban, was so the hunt could always easily find a fox,

now that the hunt do not "want" a fox, the landowners shoot any spotted,

the chap alongside us shot over eighty in six months,

I am no fan of fox hunting,

I am happy to shoot anything for stock management (we cull the deer), and if we are going to eat it, but I don't eat fox so I don't need to hunt it,

I have never lost a single bird or other live stock to foxes, but then I can build a pen to keep foxes in, so I build to keep them out.

Because you don't tend to shot foxes in the urban environment, they are flourishing, where as the countryside numbers are right down.

I find foxes handy for keeping rabbit numbers down, they do real damage, unfortunately not everyone agrees, so rural fox numbers are in real decline.

people who farm and eat meat don't make it a sport and want to defend they right to chase a defenceless animal to death for fun
most people who eat factory farmed meat and battery eggs have not even given it a passing thought.

It's not a class issue or a country v town issue. It's simply that some all sane people do not feel that killing an animal by hunting it with dogs is humane or justifiable.

I have horses. I go to the Polo. I did dressage, show jumping and eventing. I know lots of farmers. Blah, blah

I still don't like fox hunting. It's inhumane.

I don't care if Jordan does it or the Queen. It's still wrong.

Rural poverty is down to pressures on farming, and the increasing centralisation of work opportunities in big towns, meaning people can't live rurally and economically.

The number of people employed by hunts is/was insignificant compared to many other industries that supported whole communities.

i might disagree with that smallclanger as there was a knock on effect in areas such as Exmoor for the hotels and pubs as well as hiring stables etc.

Oh the rural poverty argument.

Yes. Because all those horses have vanished now. So the farrier has nothing to shoe, the livery yards are empty, the vets has had to close.

Because no one drag hunts instead and before the ban hunting was all people used their horses for. All year round in fact. So now it's banned there is just no use for them.

Bollocks

And I say that as a horse owner who knows most of the local hunt community very well sadly.

There has been almost no financial impact.

My thoughts, for what they are worth:

1. the ban was about class not animal welfare, and as someone said upthread, a waste of time and money and also diverted attention from other far more serious issues.

1. the ban has affected rural economies - livery businesses, farriers, feed merchants, pubs/hotels, etc etc etc

1. many of the sabs were as vicious as they claimed the hunters to be.

BUT

1. humane culling, ie by a trained marksman is a far kinder alternative to hunting in terms of population control (NOT traps!)

1. I hate foxes, they have had too many of my chickens and rabbits over the years despite Alcatraz style enclosures - you need to make just one tiny mistake and Foxy Loxy will strike.

So I am on the fence - country girl, rural economies suffer greatly anyway; but dont like cruelty!

ha, catgirls post pisses on mine then! thing is, I do know people whose livelihoods have suffered as a result of the ban, yes they are trying to diversify into other areas, but if you dont have a thriving drag hunt then the hunt-related people suffer.

The poverty I referred to was more in relation to those at the bottom of the hunting food chain, there was one sad old guy who used to make his living collecting animal cadavers from farmers and selling them on as food for the hounds.

My heart is not bleeding for vets or stable owners.

The number of people whose incomes depended solely or largely on the hunts is pretty minimal though. I am thinking maybe hunt kennel hands...after that I am struggling. Everyone else involved does something else (farriers, hunt masters etc) and hunting was just an extra activity.

There were people who suffered financially when slavery was abolished. Doesn't mean it wasn't right to do it.

Not that I am comparing fox hunting to slavery, except in so much that it has no place in a civilized society

The fox population isn't growing! We are!! We have taken over all the space on earth that is in habitable. Do you know what would stop foxes tearing up your bin bags. Putting them in a container, where animals can not get to.

It drives me absolutely barmy that people think killing something because it behaves as an animal is programmed to is okay. By all means lets turn our attention to naughty toddlers in supermarkets next!!!

Pfft!

Loving the thought of someone chasing my DS round sainsbos on horseback

Might stop his tantrums..........

people think killing something because it behaves as an animal is programmed to is okay
foxes do need culling somehow though Louise, as it has no natural predator in the UK, perhaps once they did but not any more.

Squoosh, that is a tiny number of people.

Also, there IS a market to be exploited outside the hunting world - interest in BARF feeding of dogs and cats has grown, and there is a demand for meat for pets/working animals, if you can tap into the demand-supply chain.

I buy freezer packs of meat offcuts, sold for animal consumption, from a butcher. I don't ask where it comes from and my dogs aren't bothered.

Oh I know it's a tiny amount of people but it was so moving, it had never occured to me that was even a way to make a living.

I fully support the fox hunt ban I just wish people could show as much consideration to other animals too.

It isn't a way to make a living. It's a way to make a tiny amount of money that's probably less than benefits might pay.

Fuel prices affect rural dwellers (and I am one) more than anything to do with foxes.

boscy so labour banned foxhunting as a class war issue to sock it to the tories and cover up more important issues (iraq war?)

The ban has NOT affected rural communities ...you can drag hunt, no one is stopping you from doing that, or just act like normal with horse and take it out for a gallop, no need to be pursuing a fox?

The people who tend to want this to be a 'class' issue 9 times out of 10 are those of think they belong to a 'class' and a better class than those who oppose a barbic tradition