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?

for those of you wanting hunting to go ahead why not volunteer to roll about in fox poo and wear a fox skin and run over the countryside yourself to be chased and ripped apart by a pack of dogs

sodastreamy I know 6 people directly affected by the ban in this small rural area alone. sorry if you dont like that, but it is the case.

I also said that I didnt support hunting because I do think it is cruel. on the other hand, of those 6 people, 4 of them have primary school age children and mum/dad having less work has had a direct impact.

children top foxes in my view. and if I had a shotgun licence I would shoot the fuckers that predate on my chickens, rabbits and I believe one cat.

Just to turn every bodies argument on its head.

The fox population is very stable

There is no mass explosion of fox numbers in rural or urban areas.

Fine, some people don't like seeing wild animals roaming through their gardens, but do some research before spouting ignorant nonsense online.

This is such a Daily Mail thread.

Fox hunting is/was abhorrent as are those who do it for 'sport'.

If you were a fox, how would you prefer to die? A quick shot to the head or by being chased for a couple of hours until there's hardly a breath left in your body and subsequently being ripped apart by dogs?

No animal deserves to be hunted.
Imagine the terror the poor things go through when they are being hunted.

Hunting animals with dogs has no place in a civilised society.

OP, YABU.

YABU

I have horses, I have land, chickens & cats, therefore, I should support fox hunting according to some posters.

Well, wrong, I don't...I find it despicable. I cannot abide the pro hunters hiding behind the argument of tradition/class/jealousy/fox control etc etc...just come out & be bloody honest, that you ENJOY chasing a terrified animal for miles & miles, until it is exhausted & then ripped apart by a pack of dogs.

Fox's breed according to the amount of food available. Hunting ban = more foxes = less food each = less babies = less foxes = more food yada yada yada. Stable population.

If you want less foxes, stop people feeding them - on purpose or accidentally (no bin bags left around etc). They will disperse elsewhere in the short term, and breed less in the long term. So less foxes.

Where I live there are no foxes (none at all, it's an Island) and garbage bags are ripped open frequently by gulls and cats (mainly) - so YABU.

"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 agree with this poster. Also, one point that is unseemly and unpleasant in one way but doing good in another re hunting - it becomes survival of the fittest, meaning, strong, healthy, clever foxes get away but the old/sick are caught. Hounds are a quick, if brutal, death rather than slowly starving as too old/toothless or slowly wasting away with disease. Plus it halts the spread of disease amongst the fox population. So yes, life is nasty brutish and sometimes short- but Mother Nature can be a whole lot nastier when it comes to old and ill wild animals.

Fox population has not been affected by the hunting ban. There are no more or no less foxes about in rural areas than there was before.

What there ARE is less rural areas. People in towns and cities have encroached on the foxes historic hunting grounds with their new build boxes, and briging their 'all you can eat buffets' in the form of wheely bins and the foxes have rubbed their little paws together and taken full advantage.

In my younger years I played a gleeful part in disrupting many a hunt. I'd do it all again if it was still required and I still had the ability.

I was overjoyed with the ban on hunting with foxes, and would be gutted if it was bought back in.

You can't make a cohesive group out of either 'town people' or 'country people'. As others have said, there are plenty of pro-hunting townies and anti-hunting country people. So that's an empty premise.

And yes, the urban fox population is pretty stable. Also, maybe other people have more timid cats but the cats and foxes in my neighbourhood, while not exactly friends, seem to have reached some sort of understanding whereby they just leave each other alone.

I think hunting IS a class issue, and that's really why it pisses me off so much. Where are the vocal and entitled people demanding that badger-baiting be made legal again? Or cock-fighting? Is it a coincidence that these are predominantly working-class pursuits, as opposed to hunting?

Pro-hunting people often can't even get their argument straight. Sometimes you hear 'It's an essential tool for keeping the fox population down', other times 'Most of the time the fox gets away unharmed.' So which is it?

Lastly, as for 'tradition', fuck that.

While fox hunt ban might not have changed the numbers what my father has experienced is the opposite. The number of fox sightings has increased steadily and the attacks are getting to a crisis point for my father. Since March he has had two cats ripped apart, lost 3 chickens and a horse was attacked.

I don't know where the government get their numbers from to say that the number of foxes hasn't increased. They are not counting them in Cheshire.

I was never for banning fox hunting because all it did was chase foxes away. I think it made it harder for them to settle in one area. Fox hunting isn't nice but neither is an animal being left to die slowly after being attacked by a fox. One of the cats was alive when my father found it and he had to wait for a vet to arrive for it to be put down. My father has a bolt which enables him to put down a horse in an emergency but he couldn't use it on the cat nor could he do the humane thing and put the poor cat out of their misery. My father isn't in an urban area. It took an hour for the vet to arrive.

so ripping an animal apart is painless is it wuldric
how the fuck would you know
it might be for the frigging huntsmen not for the poor old fox it aint
and if most hunts dont end with a kill whats the point in having a hunt then ?

I live in the country and I support the ban. Not because it's a class issue, but because I feel that as a country we have moved on from finding 'sport' in killing animals (disclaimer: fine to kill animals if you then eat them) and fox hunting is the last 'sport' to go.

@boscy

*I know 6 people directly affected by the ban in this small rural area alone. sorry if you dont like that, but it is the case.

I also said that I didnt support hunting because I do think it is cruel. on the other hand, of those 6 people, 4 of them have primary school age children and mum/dad having less work has had a direct impact.*

Tell me then how have these six people been directly effected by the fox hunt ban?

And how have the primary school age children been unduly effected by a fox hunting ban?

You say they have less work...how exactly do they have less work? If it's from hosting hunts and charging the horseback rider an admittance fee or club subscribition , well good, no one should profit out of an barbic act to hunt and kill animals

ok soda here's my answer.

one is a farrier; he has lost about 30% of his business because people have moved horses elsewhere.
Two are livery owners - hunting people pay more than pony owners, therefore loss of hunt = loss of income.
Two used to provide private catering for hunting people, they are now looking for other ways to keep their business going.
the sixth is quite specialist, he fits saddles to horses. yes there are other horses he can fit saddles to, but not everyone is prepared to pay for his services.

4 out of these 6 have primary aged children; do you not think that a fall in income will have an effect? like when new uniform/school shoes/trips etc are on the agenda?

There's actually a reduction in fox numbers in Scotland since the ban, as foxes tend to be shot now. Or I think in one part of my rural area (we have no hunt) they are being snared.

Predation is a natural death for a fox, except we have eradicated their natural predators.

As for the person who suggested I simply take my horse out for a gallop. You really dont have a clue, do you? Over whose land? I will probably hunt my young horse this winter, because hunting at speed with other horses over mixed country is something you can't replicate and will be good for his showjumping.

Anyway, I can't get a gallop any more as much of my local area has been covered with new build housing estates. Some of them even have cats...some of them probably eat meat...

Increasingly though, this is becoming an overcrowded island of namby pambies, its not really much of an environment for anyone to be happy in, so respect for other peoples interests and ancient traditions is probably too much to expect.

And by the way, one of the more interesting ways a fox hunts is by charming. Do any of the antis know what this is?

Prepare yourselves for a long one.

Foxes do not hunt for 'pleasure', and nor do cats, because that's been brought up too. It is human engineering of livestock that enables foxes to kill so many. Foxes cache their prey - which means they take the lot and plan to bury it for later. When the fox finds itself in an overstuffed hen house there is more than it could ever consume but, true to instinct, the fox kill the lot and plan to cache it. Before the fox can return for the rest, humans have usually found the remains of the kill and prevent the fox getting the lot by one means or another, usually by removing the dead.

It has been noted that better animal husbandry is more effective in protecting livestock than killing foxes is.

We, and that is zoologists, only know of one other animal than man who kills for 'pleasure', and that's dolphins. It was thought that chimps did it too, but it turns out they kill for territorial gain.

Unsurprisingly or surprisingly, depending on how much you've read, fox numbers have not boomed since the ban. Around 425,000 fox cubs are born each year and enough are culled or die naturally without hunting that the population is not growing. It's thought that packs contributed 5% of fox mortalities, roughly 23,000 foxes a year. Roughly half of those would have been cubs, killed (by dogs or for practice, or both) before the main hunting season. It's likely that any survivors, now outcasts, failed to find territory and died anyway.

The cost of foxes to farmers through livestock killings was £12 million a year. However since foxes mainly feed on rabbits, who cause over £100 million worth of damage a year, you could argue that farmers will suffer more (shock horror) without foxes. But why not just cull rabbits too? Or we could just let nature work it out for free, genius.

There was a temporary ban in (I think) 2001 when we had the foot & mouth outbreak. Zoologists used the opportunity to see how fox numbers were affected after there was no hunting on their territory. There was no change. They also looked at the control of fox populations in commercial forestry by gunmen. They found that the more foxes were there, more were successfully killed in the hunting season (autumn and winter). However, no matter how many were killed in season, numbers always replenished in spring. So, we can conclude that hunts (and on a national level, culling, because we know that foxes will just restock with new young) are not an effective means of control.

There is no evidence to suggest foxes were killed swiftly by dogs. Most post-mortems done on what was left of hunted foxes showed that death was caused by multiple injuries and not from blood loss due to a neck bite from a trained animal. There is also no evidence to suggest that dogs picked off sick or weak foxes, it is far more likely that cubs were targeted.

You may be surprised to know that it is still legal to send one, lone terrier down a fox den to flush it out. It's limited to one dog because of concerns that more than one will do lots of damage to other wildlife's habitat, namely, bird habitats. The welfare of the dog and fox is left to be judged by the supervising gamekeeper who is under obligation to recall his dog if either party becomes distressed.

The hunting ban has 0 to do with urban foxes. Hunting had 0 to do with urban foxes. Urban foxes are not 'flushed out' of the countryside by swelling numbers, fox populations have never been high enough to warrant that. Urban foxes are such a problem because human homes were built on their dens and now you are in their territory. Why would they leave their territory? Why should they leave, when easily accessed bin bags are filled so full with food? The answer lies much the same as it does with rural foxes and livestock husbandry - it's humans who could manage waste and disposal better to contain the issue. By killing the fox, you make room for a new one. By containing your waste, the foxes will vacate in search of food.

This is a short epic and doesn't even scratch the surface of the studies I have read. There are short snippets of lots of different points, because lots of different points have been raised over the last 7 or so pages.

I may return for a lurk but I doubt I will post on this topic again, I'm not sure what more I can add without writing another novel. If anyone's interested I can PM you the names of the authors whose studies I have read.

Oh shit, this really is an epic. Fuck.

When Is a Fox Charming?

"An animal is said to be ?charming? when it is prancing around, doing somersaults, acting silly, or just doing something very different from what it usually does.

Scientists used to think that when a fox acted this way, it was trying to get the attention of the animals it liked to eat. They thought it wanted them to gather around it like an audience and watch while it put on his little act.

When the animals were so interested in what it was doing that they weren?t watching out for danger, it would reach out and grab one for dinner.Today, many scientists have changed their minds. They now think that when animals are ?charming,? they are just playing for the fun of it.

If their playing attracts an audience, and the playing animal suddenly stops and attacks one of the watchers, it is just a spur-of-the-moment decision and not something planned"

Not hunting...taking advantage of a ready meal They aren't nearly as cunning as people think; they are animals driven by instinct like we are (though I can't help think that the instinct of the "pros" (arf) is a little fucked up if they drive a scared defenceless animal for several hours before ripping it to shreds. At least a fox has the decency to kill for survival)
And you can exercise your horse without the need to rip a defencless animal to shreds. I cannot believe that you think exercising an animal is an excuse for being so barbaric. And as fir the argument about saving an old or ill animal from a prolonged death. I am utterly that people think this is justification.

I never really paid much attention to fox hunting before reading this thread; it didn't sit well with me, though each to their own etc, but the attitudes of the (thankfully few) on here has horrified me

good post olidisUrsus

Ta. I tried

Charming by foxes is I think a sign if quite advanced hunting techniques. Thank you for posting such a detailed description from tge internet Lackal. I haven't hunted much but its one of the few things I picked up from it. There is so much stuff I dont know, so many traditions and knowledge being lost so we can sit in our housing estates, feeling smug.

Foxes are wasteful hunters, in that they tend to kill a whole coop.of chickens rather than the one they intend to eat, and usually a lamb bitten by a fox will die eventually due to the shock to its nervous system.

That is part of their nature as a species and does'nt make them 'good' or 'bad'.

I certainly think hunting is preferable to snaring, except now in Scotland its less likely healthy foxes will survive.

I found some of ignorance about farming on her shockingly ignorant - the notion that hunting goes on all year round, that you can just gallop a horse in a farmers field at random instead, the total ignorance of hunt businesses or how good an education it is for horse and rider. So many people now dont even have a knowledge of which plants are dangerous to ruminants, how hay is made and what cuts are best, how to make a poultice for a wound out of bran. They are too busy with their class hatred (most of the hunts I've been on aren't full of posh people at all). In fact, its relatively easy to hire a horse (a hireling), phone up the secretary and pay the day subscription to join a hunt. That's more inclusive than a lot of sports.

Its just the way this country is going. So many people are intolerant and class obsessed, while ignorant of what they are doing themselves. I do wish the same people would be as active over other issues of animal cruelty, such as live long distance transportation of animals and halal killing. But that presumably wouldn't appease their political, class leanings, disguised behind emotive words about hunting.

And OP, the fox population is probably getting out of control in urban areas, and culls might be necessary, alternatively people may just get used to living with ever bolder fox populations. Male foxes tend to have a very distinctive smell, its not pleasant. Again, I doubt that most antis gave ever been close enough to a fox to recognise it.

YANBU.

The awful thing about the hunting ban is that is was not about foxes. It wasn't even about toffs. It wasn't about the countryside and it wasn't about cruelty.

It was about legislating how people THINK. It was the first of our recent thoughtcrimes, and for that it was a terrible, terrible law.

Biologically, protecting apex predators causes havoc amongst the prey species below them. Badgers are overprotected, and there are far too many of them. Next time you see a report about nightingales, bumblebees, hedgehogs etc populations plummeting, think badger.

[This doesn't apply to country foxes because they are mostly shot and foxhunting really, really was about people galloping around the countryside. But regarding urban foxes they are protected because they are a human environment, and you are getting the chaos described by the OP]