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.

I'm no fan of hunting but FFS, do people not get that dogs are very effective killers? Foxes are rarely alive when they are ripped apart by the dogs. I have issues with hunting, but I can't get upset that a pack of dogs when they've made a kill act in such a natural way as to rip apart the dead animal's carcass.

They're not 'dogs' they're 'hounds'.

Anyone who has ever hunted down a live animal for entertainment, rather than food, should have the same done to them. When I am promoted to Master of the Universe, this will happen.

Ok, before this degenerates. The purpose of hunting is that it is designed to cull the weakest of the species, leaving the healthiest. A vixen with cubs loses her scent, and will not be hunted,therefore her cubs are safer and not left to starve. A healthy Fox is smarter and faster than hounds.
Alternative methods of culling:
The worst - snares. Horrifically cruel, painful and a danger to children,adults and other animals. Can kill a vixen and leave cubs to starve to death. Slow and painful death for trapped animal.
Shooting- difficult to shoot accurately, and an injured Fox can suffer a long painful death. Again risk to vixen, leaving cubs etc
Humane trap - will still stress the animal, and they then have to be put down and no protection for vixens with cubs. It's a case of the lesser evil. It is more complex than many people realise. What the Fox did to the babies in the house in London, is far worse than a Fox being hunted imo.

I thought it was banned?

(see, told you I'm not a hunter, don't know I'm to call them hounds not dogs, even thought hounds are dogs - I just know that dogs are very very good killers)

Delilah, Have you any links/scientific backup to the claim that vixens lose their scent when they have cubs?

It is banned

Doesn't seem to have made a huge difference IMO

DSis "drag" hunts. But they "can't help" it the hounds pick up the scent of a fox "by mistake" and go after it

Landowners and farmers just love to kill things, let's be honest. If it isn't foxes, its pheasants. Far from preserving the countryside, its about being bloodthirsty in the name of 'sport'. Then being disingenuous and saying their hobby fulfils a need. Pheasants aren't even native to this country!

The purpose of hunting is that it is designed to cull the weakest of the species, leaving the healthiest.

Really? So it's not an excuse for a bunch of blood-thirsty numpties to get together and go orf for a jolly old ride and chase down a confused, frightened and vastly out-numbered animal before letting their hounds have at it?

Are you seriously telling me that hunting is a humane pastime and that all involved are only thinking of helping out the foxes? If that's the case, then what's with all the fanfare and rigmarole? Why the dressing up? Why the need to 'celebrate' the death of the fox?

As Worra said, why the excitement over the death?

Nothing weird about that at all. Nope, not at all.

I also thought it wa banned until a FB friend of a friend put a picture up of them getting ready for 'the hunt'. Yuck.

I don't get why this is so emotive, animals are killed for human enjoyment all the time why is hunting so much worse than the destruction of animals habitats for example.

Follow the Hunt Sabateurs on Facebook, they'll give you up to date info on how many hunts are still taking place and what you can do to stop them.

If it's banned, it's banned. I daresay all the justifications were debated extensively in parliament.

I'm not soppy over animals particularly, and I understand that they have to be culled at times. But the idea of turning it into a fun sport makes me feel a bit ill to be honest.

And the argument the hunters make that they're performing an essential culling service always makes me laugh. If that were the case, would it be fair to assume that if someone arrived at a meet and were told it was OK because the fox had already died of natural causes, they would be relieved and happily go home, without having to bother with the hunt after all?!

Hunt Sabs

If it isn't foxes, its pheasants.
Er, pheasants are food. A cheap, tasty food at that. I shoot 3 or 4 times a year and not a bird is wasted. Not exactly bloodthirsty fun!

I am pro hunting and have spent many happy seasons enjoying myself. However It always baffles me why so many people get wound up by Boxing Day meets, the hunt season runs typically from Sep - March and you don't hear as much protest throughout the rest of the season. Also many people seem to forget that many hunts now purely drag hunt, and as long as the hunts always maintain hunting within the law (which many anti hunt don't bother to read) I really don't see why people still get so wound up.

If hunting 'within the law' still results in an animal being killed then that doesn't sit well with me.

I don't agree with fox hunting but I do wish I could shoot the ones that ate our guinea pigs the fucking vermin.

Cervix, that's a rather inflammatory OP, is it not?

I take it every single poster on this thread who opposes hunting is a vegetarian then, yes?

FWIW, I am not against hunting for food or culling purposes; I am against it for 'sport' and the whole industry that goes with it.

Animals get killed 'within the law' all the time; anybody who finds this distasteful or wrong should not consume anything derived from killed animals.

Or what utreas said.

Yy, why so emotive?

This old chestnut again, yawn

I think hunting is probably more cruel to the horses and the hounds than the foxes to be honest.
But Nigella has the right of it; far better for an animal to live it's life free and die by hunting, than endure a miserable existence in a factory farm.

Horses love hunting.