... to feel disgusted at fox-chasing toff-twits!

[counterpoint]

On my way to a local town for lunch today, we had to slow down and stop as a horse came galloping up towards us in the middle of the road. On his back sat a dandified twit who was looking for his hounds. In the nearby field some 100 (I kid you not) other starched twits sat on brainwashed horses with hungry hounds running amok. Traffic swayed and stopped as these twits had clearly lost the little sense they had and were dispersing all over the highway, horses looking dazed at being led among cars at great speed on slippery tarmac. Hounds confusedly sniffing all over the road and verges. How much had these twit-toffs drunk? It was not yet noon!

My friends in our car tried to calm me down saying it must be a drag when all of a sudden a poor defenseless fox jumped on the dry-stone wall looking wild-eyed as it tried to determine whether he was safer making a run for it across a busy road or turn back into a field of crazed, uncontrolled hounds and drunken (British?) twits. The fox froze and the driver of my car sped on as I screamed with panic for the predictable fate of the fox.

Why the f*ck is a supposedly civilized country allowing this kind of savagery to continue?

The bird is very effective. Crushes skull instantly in it's talons. Extremely quick death.

Battery hens are banned in the UK.

But how long is the fox chased for? The one the OP saw was being chased by hounds not a bird.

And I'm sure people would say hounds effect a quick kill.

If you were on death row and had the choice of being shot or having your skull crushed by a giant bird which would you choose?

Frilly “What is infuriating about these threads, are the amount of people who have never been hunting, nor worked in the countryside and in a lot of cases knowing very little about the countryside full stop, professing that they know some dark truth.”

Please don’t be so patronising. As I stated, I was a farmer and have lived in the countryside for 35 years. We have had Fox “issues” with livestock but chose more humane ways of dealing with them.

Most birds of prey don't normally kill something as large as a fox. And it suspends disbelief to accept that hounds are so out of control that sometimes they kill foxes accidentally because, you know, they're animals - but that they wouldn't go for a bird of prey. And if the bird is territorial, and won't let go of its prey, how is that going to end for the bird? My friend's tale of the bird sitting safely with the falconer throughout sounds more likely to me...

It's been said repeatedly upthread that two wrongs don't make a right. Battery farming is shit. Fox hunting is shit. Why should you have to shrug your shoulders at both together? They're not mutually exclusive.

As it happens, though, I have been involved with a campaign in a small way, and i don't buy eggs at the supermarket 99% of the time because we have a friend with free range chickens who gives us eggs. (She also keeps them when they are too old to lay; they are so much more intelligent than people give them credit for!)

Are you sure they were toffs? Toffs usually have the good sense (and large enough estates) not to go fox hunting on a road.

Hunt sabs shouldn't be violent to the horses or hounds, just the people who own them.

Please don’t be so patronising. As I stated, I was a farmer and have lived in the countryside for 35 years. We have had Fox “issues” with livestock but chose more humane ways of dealing with them.

For me this is the crux of it all - why, with the sole intent of killing one fox - is it necessary for a long, terrifying chase by many, dressing up and making a spectacular, making light of this victory?

It has to be for the buzz.

To me, that's no different to the hunter who is pictured with his prey, trumphantly (well done, clever person, you took a lion down with a shotgun) or the gang who capture a cat and stick a firework to its tail.

But you'll try to convince us its for the benefit of the countryside and not your ego.

If it is about control, then why all the performance?

triumphantly even...

Call me a cynic, but I can't help wondering about the hunting with birds of prey thing - especially after a PP mentioned it was rarely done until the relevant exemption in the Hunting Act was found

Have all those who claim to be doing this really found a new enthusiasm, or are they just making sure someone's wearing a falconry glove and, if challenged, insisting that the (imaginary?) birdie is "up there flying about somewhere - look, can't you see that dot in the sky?"

@George199 Excellent summary earlier. That's all you need to say

Oh they do actually take a bird out for the day. Having a ride about on a quad bike.

My friend said the bird was driven around by the falconer on a quad bike, if I recall correctly. It was a while ago, though.

It's not a sport when it's uneven. And when only one participant can lose. And when only one side wanted to play in the first place!

I loathe fox hunting and blood sports in general, but I was raised in the countryside, so on the other hand I have no issue with pest control or hunting/shooting in general.

I've friends who make a living using ferrets to deal with rabbits, terriers for rats and shooting/trapping moles and other vermin, same as most of the farms here about all have farm cats for keeping the mouse/rat population down on their property.

Death/Hunting isn't the issue.. what, like a lot of others, I have an issue with is the 'blood sport' aspect of Fox Hunting.. I have no issue with trail/drag hunting, or bird shoots (lots of pheasant/grouse here about) its the whole chasing the fox up hill and down dale that I hate, and I hate that there are hunts that constantly flout the law and then get away with it.

They are not in control of the hounds.

By mentioning the many muddy clauses in the Hunting Act I wished to draw attention to the fact that Tony Blair's government at the time did not have the wherewithal to create a concise and easy to understand law. They wanted the uncertainty - they hoped to bamboozle both pro and anti hunters into thinking that they had somehow won a small victory. I did not say that that was what actually happened. There are several hundred hunts across the UK and each of them has chosen to interpret the Hunting Act in their own way. In many ways I wish that it was clear cut and absolute, which would remove ambiguity - I have no problem at all hunting a trail.

The OP was either very lucky or unlucky depending on your point of view to see a fox chased by hounds. In 35 years of hunting I have only seen hounds chase a fox on a couple of occasions, and not in recent years due to the ban. In fact, the last time I saw a fox being chased by a pack of hounds (and the only time in my life I have witnessed a kill) was such an awful occasion it was almost darkly comic. I was pregnant so following hounds in a car with an older gentleman. The day was over and the hounds were being taken back to their lorry. A group of saboteurs had been shadowing the hunt for much of the day but had not been seen in the past hour. My companion and I pulled into a gateway to watch the hunt go by, huntsman trotting back with his hounds, and at this moment two things happened simultaneously: 1. My companion pointed to a fox crouched quietly under a rhododendron bush, completely unnoticed by the hounds or any other followers and 2. the saboteurs pulled up in their car from the opposite direction. The hounds had actually passed the fox and paid no attention to it when one of the sabs spotted it and yelling 'noooooooo!' ran at the fox waving his arms in order to try and protect the fox in some way from the oblivious hounds. The fox jumped out of his hiding place and straight into the jaws of the hounds. Had the sabs not been there, this wouldn't have happened. The sabs ran at various riders and one of them began to punch horses. A fist fight broke out between one of the riders and this sab and the other sabs were very abusive and threatening police action. The hunt master said they were not to worry, he was going to call in to the local police station on the way home and report the incident, and he would mention the attack by the sabs and the fact that their car was untaxed while he was there. They dispersed fairly quickly after that.

Hont1986 could you clarify why someone who is going about a lawful activity should be hurt?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5270815/Hunt-saboteurs-film-hounds-rampaging-gardens.html

Daily mail link but interesting video. Don’t see how those hounds can be following a scent trail?? Good to see all the comments below the article are against hunting, even some toff comments!

But just shows what the majority of the public think on the subject.

I love riding, I can see the attraction in a days hunting and I can see the attraction that a fox hunt from a riding POV is more attractive than following a scent trail as you have the added element of surprise.....not knowing where you may end up, etc. But even with all that, the overwhelming revulsion of seeing an animal ripped to bits takes precedence over that and is why I’m against fox hunting.

Thanks Viva.

Who wins? The terrified fox? The confused hounds? Beleagured residents? The poor cats?

So much violence. Just stop the hunting please. It's the root cause.

Well, I'm talking about illegal hunts which set out to kill foxes, or the 'legal' hunts which oh-so-coincidentally end up killing a fox anyway.

But generally I have no problems with people doing immoral things getting hurt for it. Dogfighting is legal in Japan, I can't say I would lose much sleep over anti-dogfighting sabs hurting the owners either.

Well, I'm talking about illegal hunts which set out to kill foxes, or the 'legal' hunts which oh-so-coincidentally end up killing a fox anyway.

But generally I have no problems with people doing immoral things getting hurt for it. Dogfighting is legal in Japan, I can't say I would lose much sleep over anti-dogfighting sabs hurting the owners either.

two things happened simultaneously: 1. My companion pointed to a fox crouched quietly under a rhododendron bush, completely unnoticed by the hounds or any other followers and 2. the saboteurs pulled up in their car from the opposite direction. The hounds had actually passed the fox and paid no attention to it when one of the sabs spotted it and yelling 'noooooooo!' ran at the fox waving his arms in order to try and protect the fox in some way from the oblivious hounds. The fox jumped out of his hiding place and straight into the jaws of the hounds. Had the sabs not been there, this wouldn't have happened.

Utter rubbish. Your story is unbelievable. You didn't spot the fox. The hounds didn't spot the fox. Yet sabs arrived and somehow immediately spotted it. Right!

The fox didn't move when the whole pack went by yet was seemingly scared out by the sabs? Right!

The hounds were not scared away by the sabs shouting? Unbelievable. Because the natural reaction is that the hounds would run off and the fox, having cleverly lain quiet for so long, and so well hidden, wouldn't now suddenly be frightened off so easily.

Sophisticated fabrication.

Absolutely no hound should be on private property without permission. But I would love to know whether the monitors had specific permission to be in the private garden too, and am particularly interested to know what exactly they are spraying around the garden at 43 and 50 seconds in. They couldn't possibly be spraying a fox-based scent to attract hounds into somewhere they should be, then filming them there and claiming the huntsman was out of control, could they? The baby in the kitchen is a complete red herring, it was in no danger at any point - there have been more documented cases of babies being attacked by a fox than hounds.

I'll just say it again - the average hunt follower does not see nor take part in any ripping apart of anything. If you were to see a hunt in the countryside the average person would be hard pressed to tell what type of hounds they were and what they were hunting, be it trail, drag or bloodhound pack. The videos that end up like this on Facebook or the Daily Mail website only end up there because there has been conflict and it provides further conflict on social media. If it were a normal hunting day with hounds hunting legally it wouldn't make it here. For anyone who doubts this, there are plenty of head cam videos out there of riders hunting with foxhound packs where a trail has clearly been laid because the number of pre-prepared fences that they jump would not have happened had a route not been planned.

Here's one for you:

No foxes being ripped to pieces here, just an exhilarating ride across private land following a trail that has clearly been laid unless they have somehow managed to train a fox to cross only over the land belonging to farmers who have permitted hunt jumps to be built along a particular route!

Sophisticated fabrication.

Absolute truth, actually.