to think hunt saboteurs are heroes?

[FishCanFly]

I always donate when they're fundraising locally.

We also have a problem here with hunt sabs. We drag hunt here. (Jersey). The sabs came out to protest blood sports. And the unnecessary killing of foxes.

We don’t have foxes on the island. So it is pure drag hunting.

They couldn’t grasp the fact that nothing was going to die and that we were just chasing a scent.

IncandescentShadow Well clearly any kind of leg-hold trap is inhumane—that's why these devices have been banned in many places.
And no I do not advocate trapping without a licence, or snaring of any kind. There are international standards for humane trapping.

sabs recently stopped the minkhounds who were about to dig out mink or otters. My god, if you watch the footage they were brave to stand up to the female involved

Yes, I believe it's true that mink can be vicious

Odd, isn't it, that you never see these folk stalking wasp exterminators or rat catchers? No - it always has to be something cute and fluffy (with a side helping of "sticking it to the toffs")

And FWIW I'm no admirer of foxhunting either ...

Live trapping foxes is cruel.

Read the Burns report - like it or not, hunting was actually deemed the most species specific, low cost, viable method of reducing foxes/dispersing foxes.

It isn't the most humane method, that is determined to be lamping with a high powered rifle, which is extremely expensive and runs the risk of shooting something that isn't a fox (child in the hedgerow, some other pair of glowing eyes at the right height).

Shooting is also not safe to do in a lot of places (anywhere the bullet can travel further than intended, cross a footpath or road etc).

All of that aside, fox hunting with hounds is now illegal (fox hunting ISN'T illegal.. you just can't kill foxes with a pack, mind you can flush a fox to a bird of prey, thats fine...) and so I've no issue with hunt observers.

My experience of sabs however is that they are ignorant, and dangerous, with no care for animal welfare at all.

I have witnessed horses punched, stabbed, yanked around, hit with whips to try and get them to rear or fall.

I have seen hounds hit, chased across roads, chased across railway lines, distracted and confused with horns and strong scents, fireworks thrown at them, caught and abducted...

How? Well when I was a stupid teenager I went out with sabs a few times. The main aim was to goad hunters into swearing in your face or ideally, punching or hitting you, get them to fall off their horses or get hounds to cause accidents, all of this to be caught on camera.

I quit when they arranged to go out to disrupt the Cheshire Drag hunt, who hunt an aniseed scent laid by a human runner, and have been purely a drag hunt for over 100 years, their hounds have NEVER chased fox, their hounds great great great great grandparents have NEVER chased fox, they have NO interest in fox at all. They want to gallop and jump fast, all day, thats it.

The sabs did not care, they knew they'd get great footage of angry hunt followers by doing it, and that is their goal.

Anyone GENUINELY caring about foxes would have read the anti hunting bill when it was proposed, read the Burns report and opposed it on the grounds that it DID NOT GO FAR ENOUGH and did not protect animals at all!

And no, OP, in answer to your original post, I don't think being a hero is spending a day harassing the people who actually live and work in the countryside. I don't think trying to provoke people into being filmed giving a reaction is heroic either. I don't think manipulating the all too often vulnerable people who support these causes is in the least heroic.

I do however think a lot of the people who actually live in the countryside are heroic in a quiet way, day in, day out, although most rural traditions have long vanished or been forgotten. So much knowledge has been lost. I met an old countryman who told me that the old fashioned way of stopping bleeding from a bad cut is to put a cobweb across it. There must be so many other pieces of knowledge like that that have been lost, all so that we can try and pretend to be environmentally friendly to drive out to the countryside for a day to harass the people that live there.

I met an old countryman who told me that the old fashioned way of stopping bleeding from a bad cut is to put a cobweb across it

He saw you coming didn't he? lol! lets hope that bacteria you pick up isn't antibiotic resistant.

My good friends BF is a real countryman, he can call foxes and then shoots them, pop round to his garage and they'll be a deer or two hanging up, freezer packed full of salmon, poached and no, not as in egg.

He is a right rogue or as city types would say "a criminal"

But one thing we do agree on is that fox hunting with hounds is unnecessary, barbaric and cruel

Well said @Lexilooo

I live in the countryside and I’ve never been harassed by a sab.

They're absolute 🤡

jasjas He saw you coming didn't he? lol! lets hope that bacteria you pick up isn't antibiotic resistant.

Sorry, what? Its a well known old fashioned treatment for cuts on horses when you're miles from anywhere and don't have any vets with antibiotics handy...

Why on earth did you think I was talking about using it on humans?

Sabs are amazing! The disgusting assholes who hunt however are not!

They have my every respect. Killing animals for sport is such an ugly trait.

I live in a rural area where 'hunts' are popular and IME the sabs are anything but heros

I'm absolutely anti-hunt

I've witnessed, personally, so called sabs slashing horses, stamping on a stray hound's head - all under the umbrella of being 'pro animal'

And I'm not sorry to generalise but the main of the people who are sabs seem to be unemployed, dreadlocked people who don't give a f* about animals, are just are unemployable and out and out scum.

I'm 100% anti fox hunting (and all blood sports) but I grew up rurally with horses and I've seen and heard bloody awful things that hunt saboteurs have done (trip wires, breaking a horse's knee with a rounders bat, poisoning a dog) so I consider the hunt sabs to be just as cruel and awful tbh. Hunting should be totally banned by law, not by thugs who don't care about animals and will happily hurt them in the name of class warfare.