To think there's never an excuse for fox hunting

[catspyjamas27]

There's a bull fighting thread up atm.

I feel the same about fox hunting. I live rurally, I get that foxes can cause devastating damage. But is it ever ok to hunt one down and watch it being tore apart for fun?

I just can't get my head around the mentality of the people who enjoy this shit?

It isn't difficult thing to understand. Either you are a normal compassionate human, or you are the kind of mentally disturbed filth who takes pleasure in the suffering and torture of helpless animals. It really is black and white.

Shame they can't sit inside their local abattoir with a bag of popcorn really

Now there is an opportunity!. I'm going to get started on the business plan now, thank you.

ANAYONE who eats meat that is farmed, or dairy for that matter, is implicit in animal cruelty. I also wonder how many of the people who object to fox hunting actually live in areas where they see first hand the problems they can cause in rural areas. Usually I think the objection to hunting is usually an extension of disliking the type of person who does it. Inverse snobbery in other words.

@TrainspottingWelsh well said

Yes, hunting is very good at making people who know nothing about anything feel amazingly smug about themselves. I've seen the anti hunt brigade throw stones at children and ponies and tie wire across trees that could potentially kill somone. When a 12 year old girl died out hunting a couple of years ago the Facebook comments were disgusting, people taking even more obvious pleasure in her death than anyone takes in the death of a fox. I know which side is psychopathic!

@Wiltshirelass2019 nail on the head

I don”t object to culling foxes. I object to it being done in a ritual manner.

@TrainspottingWelsh well said

It's not particularly entertaining, it's a job, same as working in an abbatoir or a chicken factory.

Wrong.

People take part in blood 'sports' because sports are entertainment/hobbies.

If people working in chicken factories got a thrill and excitement out of chasing terrified chickens around before killing them, I'd say you had a point.

Erm, worra, I am not wrong. The hunt staff are employed. It's an actual job!

Yes I know it's an actual job.

I'm talking about the killing-for-kicks 'sports' lovers.

Not only is it deemed acceptable for these people to derive entertainment/pleasure from death, it's also somehow ok to get their children involved.

If SS witnessed a kid killing pigeons for a laugh, they'd be on the parent's backs immediately and rightly so.

@Browniebronze I don't think people who are against hunting are 'smug' I'd say they're just normal people who object to the torture and horrific death of an innocent creature. No matter how much damage and destruction a fox causes, it is a dumb animal with no sense of right or wrong. It's acting within its instincts. It doesn't understand. The people who work within the industry or take any form of pleasure in it clearly know what they're doing. It's sickening.

Of course it's also wrong for anti hunters to abuse or assault people or animals. But I can't say I blame people for getting het up about it. It's fucking awful.

“Yes, hunting is very good at making people who know nothing about anything feel amazingly smug about themselves”
I know a lot about it. I am opposed to it. I do not feel remotely smug.

I don't get this idea that working class blood sports have been banned and posh ones not.

Fox hunting, the ultimate 'posh' bloodsport, is, in the sense of the hounds hunting and killing a fox, illegal. I'm sure sometimes the hounds do catch a fox, but if this is done deliberately, the law has been broken. But a hunt is not doing anything illegal when it sets out to hunt a laid trail.

I'm not sure if you count angling and pigeon and rabbit shooting as blood sports, but they go on all the time. They are not exactly posh pursuits. Socially mixed, if anything.

A lot of farmers around here don't like the hunt, because they trespass on land they have been told not to be on, ride over crops, break fences and distress the livestock, working animals and pets...

“I'm sure sometimes the hounds do catch a fox”

A lot of people seem to be confusing trail hunting and drag hunting ... they’re very different things (explanation here)

I would never condone fox hunting, and trail hunting is too similar for comfort, but can’t see anything wrong with drag hunting. It’s a huge shame that drag hunts also get targeted as if all hunts swapped to drag hunting the problem of illegal hunting would pretty much be solved.

Disgusting practice by disgusting people.

"The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable" G Bernard Shaw

But foxes do damage to farms... which is why their populations need controlling... and therefore it's all about food production.

Fox hunting is not about controlling the fox population. Its about something quite different.

Agree with you OP.

Incidentally, if anyone thinks that retired fox hounds are contentedly snoozing by firesides, just think for a moment of the life they lead and the training they get and you will see what an unlikely scenario that is. I am a country woman, and don’t actually have a problem with a working animal being put down when it’s useful life is at an end, but I object to hunting people being presented as fluffy animal lovers.

But angling, pigeon shooting, and rabbit shooting people eat the fish/animals after don't they?

Shooting foxes if farmers need to get rid of them seems much kinder...though I don't know what can be done about the ones that get shot awkwardly and crawl off to die

People don’t usually eat the fish they catch coarse fishing. But yes, rabbits and pigeons usually end up in the pot. It’s ridiculous that we don’t eat more rabbit. Oh well, come Brexit..

I only really know Italian countryside dwellers. I don't think catch and release fishing is very popular in Italy (at least I don't know anyone that does it), my relatives going fishing usually means they fancy fish for dinner.

I think fishing/hunting/allotments probably will get more popular after Brexit. My parents always grow fruit and veg in the back garden for fun but they've been taking it much more seriously this year!