To hate the disingenuous, lying, underhand Hunting Brigade and there ongoing campaign to bring back fox hunting

[Boomingmarvellous]

I hate fox hunting with horses and hounds. It's cruel and barbaric. That's my only objection. I don't mind shooting foxes if they are predating livestock like chickens and lambs. The rest should be left in peace to maintain their place in rural life.

The Hunting brigade and the Countryside Alliance have lied about everything to support their 'sport'. Not least the mass euthanasia of hounds and horses and loss of countryside jobs if it was banned. 10 years on it is more popular then ever.

They still 'accidentally' kill foxes who stray across their path. Why? Because the trail they lay is still concocted to smell of foxes. They have had 10 years to raise hounds to follow a different scent. Dogs can be trained to pick up the scent of anything so why stick to fox? Of course it's because they knew if a conservative government got in they would change the law back again.

Thank you SNP for scotching that idea.

Here we go again, hunting season is
Sep - March but this tired old argument gets wheeled out on Boxing Day every year. Yawn.

The scent round here is a mix of aniseed and rancid meat, kept in a barrel to ferment. It is just a very strong, distinctive smell that will stay long enough for a trail over miles of countryside. Beagling packs have used it for decades, as have human harriers - human runners have been used for decades too, way before the hunting ban.

There are many stories about fox urine/shit being used, and it probably is in some places. But round here I know it isn't as an ex student is the man who organises the trail laying and he uses hare and rabbit carcasses for his 'hunt juice'.

Dogs can be trained to pick up any scent! Drugs, cigarettes, dead bodies etc.

100s of years of training is irrelevant. They are trained to specialise in foxes from puppyhood. There used to be a mini hunt of fox Cubs by puppy hounds to 'train' them to pick up fox scents later on.

Never heard of Pavlovs dog?

There are so many holes in the hunting argument. Pest control is perhaps the most significant. Any argument that includes the words 'chickens' and 'lambs' is also dead in the water. The hunt mob will go to extraordinary lengths to defend their sport and if this includes spinning absolute garbage and treating Joe Public like idiots then they will do it.
Interesting story this week of a fox being kept in an old outhouse. Hunt employee then returns with hessian sack to remove fox two hours before Belvoir hunt go out.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-35173342

Baker,P.J.&Harris,S.(2006).Doescullingreducefox (Vulpes vulpes) density in commercial forests in Wales, UK? European Journal of Wildlife Research, 52: 99-108.

Refers specifically to culling regardless of method I believe.

3 Wright, L.J., Newson, S.E. & Noble, D.G. (2014). The value of a random sampling design for annual monitoring of national populations of larger British terrestrial mammals. European Journal of
Wildlife Research, 60:213-221.

Research demonstrating no significant change in populations since the hunting act came into force.

Rushton,S.P.,Shirley,M.D.F.,Macdonald,D.W.&Reynolds, J.C. (2006). Effects of culling fox populations at the landscape scale: A spatially explicit population modelling approach. The Journal of Wildlife Management,
70: 1102-1110.

Investigates success levels of various methods of "control" including winter shooting and hunting with hounds as well as fertility control methods.

Evidence?

www.thefoxwebsite.net/foxhunting/huntban

www.ifaw.org/united-kingdom/our-work/banning-hunting-dogs/myths-realities#a4

You can't have it both ways! Either fox hunting slaughtered thousands of foxes and needed to be stopped or it was, actually, quite ineffective as a form of control and so must have been done primarily for fun!

Oddly, the facts support the latter hypothesis. The man who is the licensed fox shooter round here has had the job since he was 20. He is now in his late 50s and has seen no increase or decrease due to the hunt - which he used to hate but now supports. He now even shares the location of dens with them so they can avoid them when trail laying.

Not everyone in the countryside ever supported the hunt. But, now it is no longer 'fox' hunting, more are now involved, the ban has been successful, created less animal cruelty and more jobs.

Sep - March but this tired old argument gets wheeled out on Boxing Day every year. Yawn.

By their own admission, the Countryside Alliance view Boxing Day meets as the most significant in the hating calendar. Does this help explain why it is 'wheeled out' at this time of year?

Yes the dogs could be trained to pick up a different scent.

But the people involved have no incentive to stop doing what they're doing, they know that the law cannot stop them, so it continues.

If people really want it to stop, then stop calling the hunters vile creatures and riling at them, put pressure on the government to make better laws and actually enforce those laws.

Unfortunately every Boxing Day the countryside alliance bring up the non necessity of repealing the fox hunting ban, trotting out the same old lies. Apart from the one about the destruction of who swathes of the countryside and all the foxhounds in existence because it clearly hasn't happened.

I just wish for once they would be honest and say the ban has strengthened the hunting community. It's enjoyed now by more families. It good traditional exercise and foxes can be controlled in other ways. And just shut up about killing foxes. It makes them look anachronistic and ridiculous. They annoy me more than anything,

Yup. Hate it passionately. I tend to get lumped in with the hunt because I ride -I've had someone scream at me while I was out for being "murdering scum". I have never and would never go. They cause utter chaos round here with the hounds running loose on the road, horses cantering down the centre on the road (poor horses legs), blocking driveways, jumping in and out of private property, still being out past dark (they lost several hounds) in no reflective wear at all and getting arsey when road users nearly hit them. They irritate the shit out of me with their rudeness and lack of respect. They absolutely still catch foxes and deer.

Are my posts visible to anyone?

I keep posting but people keep on trotting out the usual tripe, without even querying the info I am giving. It's like some of you just don't want to know anything other than the usual shite!

There used to be a mini hunt of fox Cubs by puppy hounds to 'train' them to pick up fox scents later on.

Well that's just pure bollocks.

I'm bowing out of this now. I have extensive knowledge of how hunts are run, and I'm also completely unbiased as I don't hunt any more and support the ban as I believe trail hunting works better.
But I'm not going to waste my time correcting the wilfully ignorant.

So yeah, have a few hundred pages of 'all hunters are bastards! They use puppy hounds to kill baby foxes! They're all so posh and arrogant! They're all rich and love cockfighting!' as that's clearly what most of you are here for.

I never said that. Just said the support for hunting is largely based on bollocks.

Anyone who sees chasing, terrorising and killing another living thing as a 'sport' is a vile human being.

Yes culling is necessary, as is the protection of livestock.

But I seriously question the mentality of any human being who can experience any kind of enjoyment, from the death of an animal.

They're certainly not people I wish to associate with.

I can see them Blanche

Can you see mine ?

Youbastard. I have said nothing of the sort and have never said any of the things you suggest.

I will find some evidence to support the mini hunt. They did take place to teach young hounds how to pick up fox scent. Give me a minute.

Blanche I have said from the beginning the countryside alliance has lied continuously. Not least to say hunting was needed to control fox numbers. Utter rubbish.

I might take YouBastard's lead. Even Worra is piling in with the usual cant.

Worra is just mistaken about the need for control/culling.

Bang on about the rest.

Not you, Booming. You seem to have the same overall idea as myself, we just differ in the details, which is to be expected as I doubt any 2 hunts operate in the same way!

www.league.org.uk/our-campaigns/hunting-with-dogs/is-hunting-cruel/cub-hunting

It's called cub hunting. Google brings up loads of results

I will find some evidence to support the mini hunt. They did take place to teach young hounds how to pick up fox scent. Give me a minute.

Google 'Autumn hunting' as I think that's what you think you're on about.

Never heard of Pavlovs dog?

Who salivated when he rang a bell? Is that relevant here?

No, Worra is not right about the rest as she refers to such people as if they are the only kind of hunters that exist, that all hunters are those people. There is no reference to the current situation in the UK, the changes in the traditional hunt, the wide range of people who participate in the hunt, the lack of expectation of a kill in the hunt, etc etc.

It is just the usual blanket condemnation, disingenuous at best, outright lies and hate stirring at worst.

It is the blanket condemnation without any wider understanding that is irritating.

Cub hunting is autumn hunting, but with a sanitised name.

So are you saying these mini hunts never happened? They were used to train young dogs to recognise fox scent. I said that because it's idiocy to say foxhounds can only follow a scent of foxes. Again. They are 'trained' during cub/autumn hunting. So they can be trained to pick up a different scent and avoid accidentally chasing the fox.

Round here that's what happens. They follow the laid trail of aniseed and hare/rabbit stew, as I posted earlier!