Trail hunting ban - would you hunt the "clean boot"?

[BootHunter]

Horsey people - with the talk of an upcoming ban on trail hunting, would you consider joining a clean boot hunt as an alternative?

YANBU - Yes
YANBU - No

IF YOU DON'T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TRAIL HUNTING AND CLEAN BOOT HUNTING THEN GOOGLE IT!

I'm a horse owner but I do not hunt because all there is locally to me is "trail hunting" packs. However, if there was a legitimate bloodhound pack hunting human quarry then I absolutely would join, and I can think of several friends who would too.

I personally feel that this could be a great opportunity for the local hunts to evolve into something that more people want to take part in, and probably the only thing that will stop the whole industry from closing down altogether.

Oh and maybe pause to think about the life of the animal whose skin you wear on your feet or who provided your supper. We are losing small abattoirs, resulting in farm animals having to be transported far from home and slaughtered in inhuman industrial settings. Increasingly large numbers of animals are being subject to halal slaughter methods, even though halal and kosher exceptions to the law are only meant to serve those populations. Animals abroad, who provide you with your leather goods, face even more barbaric conditions.

The entire reason foxhounds exist is to hunt foxes! Don't all the animals that humans breed exist for a purpose?? Sheep, cows, chickens, pigs - all of them, exist for us to eat, we kill them without a second thought, in their millions and millions.

If trail hunting is banned then what do you propose they do with all the hounds?

Their natural predator was the wolf. They don’t exist any more. Foxhounds didn’t kill enough foxes to provide a complete method of population lotion control before the ban on fox hunting and they certainly don’t now. But if they do occasionally catch a fox, the fox is experiencing the same death in the wild that its ancestors experienced. It’s not inhumane.

I used to follow hounds in the 90s, went out hundreds of times. I also have witnessed a lot of foxes being shot.

I never saw a fox get away having been wounded by hounds. It's fate was either a quick death or a clean getaway. But I remember looking for the foxes that had been shot at but not killed (not by me I hasten to add) by various people over 20 years. I hated knowing anything was somewhere, wounded. I know which death I'd rather have and foxes, like rats and rabbits need controlling. As do Badgers.

Yes and I do. I also follow legitimate drag hunting packs. Drag packs use a runner trailing a synthetic non animal based scent and follow it using foxhounds and harrier hounds (so these breeds can still be used ethically but it takes training). Fox hound trail packs have had the opportunity of several puppy generations since 2004 to adapt and most have chosen not to!! It's like Kodak ignoring the invention of the digital camera!
Bloodhounds follow the scent of the runners trainers/feet i.e the clean boot. The only quarry with both drag/clean boot is the human with Nigel/Kate/Dan getting a good licking at the end. It is perfectly possible to separate riding with hounds from wildlife. These Clean Boot and Drag packs advertise their meets, pre plan their routes and actively welcome monitoring. There are no hunt monitors (that I have ever met) as there is nothing to monitor!
In Scotland a similar ban was implemented in 2023 and a few drag and bloodhound packs still operate. The Fife foxhounds became the Fife Bloodhounds. It's not impossible for a pack to switch breed but breeding bloodlines matter. I think some of the best scent hunting Bloodhounds are actually mixed breed. It would be slow to develop new packs and Master/Hound relationships.
The hunting community has been too stubborn and slow to adapt to the social political world we live in and it will be their undoing. Pedigree foxhounds are valuable. My view is that if hunts disbanded completely they are far more likely to be offered up to be be sold to packs in Ireland or the continent in the first instance than put down.

Many clean boot/drag hunt riders strongly oppose killing foxes/illegal activities by other hunts and have voted with their hooves.
The whole set up of drag/clean boot is for the benefit of the field more than the MFH. As a rider it is a fantastic day at a much faster pace. I love riding with hounds and want it to continue. I would therefore support law that forced all hunts to drag/clean boot ethically. I just hope the good ones don't get punished with the bad ones. I think hunt licencing, stricter laws, punishments, requirement to publicise meet locations and routes perhaps compulsory muzzling of hounds could be options to consider which would still allow riding with hounds to still exist.

I propose that we don’t ban trail hunting. It’s an acceptable compromise. I also believe that just as we try to conserve rare and ancient breeds of farm animals like long horn cattle and Gloucester Old Spot Pigs, and just like we try to conserve ancient wild animals like Gorillas, we should make policy choices that allow foxhounds to exist.

This industry doesn’t need to survive in any way, shape or form. Barbarism and, at best, an imitation of barbarism.

Thank you (great username BTW) - I think you've succinctly voiced my thoughts, that the whole industry needs to change in order to survive. I think it could be a change for good which would bring a new interest to it especially from younger riders who would choose not to do it currently.

@Pollyanna87 People like you worry too much about a few animals but haven’t eliminated dogs that kill babies and adults. Fox hounds are not regularly killing foxes and very few cases have gone to court. People guess about foxes killed but hardly anyone is prosecuted because it’s not an everyday occurrence.

Dangerous dogs have nothing to do with hunting. Yes, vicious breeds should be eliminated. There’s no reason for any human or animal to be killed by a domestic canine.

There is yawning chasm between anthropomorphising animals and moronic bloodthirsty arseholes terrifying and killing animals for fun, but based on your posts I suspect you’re one of the bloodthirsty arseholes.
Ther is no excuse in this day and age for blood sports that depend on fear and torture, would you like it is I hunted you, scared and alone, across fields and then watched whilst you were torn to death. Didn’t think so.

Actually I think both of you are wrong.
Drag and Clean Boot hunting doesn't harm wildlife and there is no reason it shouldn't continue.
I do not support hounds killing ANY foxes. Full Stop. It is illegal.....I still want to ride with hounds and it is perfectly possible to do that without any foxes being involved. Continuing dogmatically with the rhetoric that culling foxes with hounds is somehow beneficial/justified and continuing to do it is exactly why this new ban is now coming into place.

I’m not. Riding is not my thing. I rode as a child, then did my bit volunteering with mucking out ponies when my daughter wanted to ride, but it’s not an activity I am that keen on. I do live in the countryside. I do see the reality of the harsh life that wild animals live. I do believe in old fashioned conservation and I think trail hunting is a sensible compromise. Realistically, I think clean boot hunting with foxhounds is more likely to lead to accidental fox deaths than when they are following a strong scent, so I think those who want to avoid foxes being killed by dogs should prefer trail hunting.

No plans to ban halal slaughter though eh Starmer?

A trail hunting ban is nothing to do with animal welfare whatsoever. Its all about winning easy votes.

I know a clean boot organiser who works with bloodhounds. They train as a pack and the ones that don't want to do it (as in, don't enjoy hunting the quarry) are carefully rehomed as pets. Insurance is eye watering through because as a breed they tend to need expensive veterinary treatment.

I have lost a few hens to foxes, sadly I had to stop keeping them free range, and despite electric fences and digging in steel cages under the hen house - foxes will just wait day after day until they have the opportunity to kill your pet rabbit or hens, am not a fan.

The government need to seriously back of rural communities. First IHT changes now this. The farming community will not just roll over and accept this.

There is zero reason to ban Clean boot hunting. It harms nothing and no one. It’s a fantastic day out and an excellent education for both horse and rider. Bloodhounds are slower than foxhounds which in turn are slower than foxes. So there is zero risk to wildlife. They really lock on to their scent and are therefore not distracted by other scents or nearby wildlife.

I do understand how difficult it is from an outside perspective looking in at fox control. It is unfortunately a necessary job. With no natural predators the fox population is somewhat unchecked. Hunting mimics natural predation. Hounds are slower than foxes so a healthy fox will easily outrun them. Those that would be caught were the injured, sick and old. Which ultimately meant that the fox population was kept healthier. You only need to look at the issues with TB in badgers or bird flu to see how unchecked illness in wildlife populations causes huge issues.
Is it a nice death - no it’s not. But nor are the alternatives. Sadly the vast majority of wildlife meet a traumatic or painful end. Be it through natural predation, road accidents, injury or illness.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers. But I don’t think hunting is the evil thing that it’s made out to be

Foxhunting was banned 20 years ago. Why did people continue breeding more fox hounds? I understand continuing trail hunting to allow existing packs to gradually wind down but why have more and more been bred for whom there's no purpose/useful work?

However - i agree with many pp that there needs to be alternative solution for fox control. I live rurally and they are a menace, our village is overrun with them. Local smallholders regularly lose 40+ chickens in one go if a fox gets in. Pet rabbits have been taken. There's ample local wildlife for foxes to prey on but they will always target farmed animals because they are larger & fatter - better food!

But trail hunting isn’t a compromise because the majority of the time they are not following a trail. I see video after video of trail hunts surrounding a copse of woodland, with riders at different points and waiting while they send hounds in. It’s blatantly obvious there is no trail and they’re trying to flush a fox out.

Theres been numerous incidents locally of hounds on busy main roads, including hounds being killed on the A1 which is basically a motorway. Are we saying the hunt are daft enough to be laying a trail across such roads? Would they really not care about their hounds enough to risk them like this?

I’ve seen plenty of videos where the hounds are chasing a fox and the hunt make no attempt to call them off. Why if it’s trail hunting are there terrier men on quad bikes with terriers? No need for terriers if they’re following a scent surely?

someone earlier said “This is just a political attack on hounds and people who ride to hounds. Most of whom just want to ride on a great route over interesting terrain.”. I’m sure it’s possible to ride a great route on interesting terrain without using dogs full stop. 🤷‍♀️

Lost six chickens in one go a few years ago. I don’t know if it was a fox, no sign of bits of any chickens left behind which dh said is unusual. But if it was a fox I don’t blame it. I blame myself for getting lazy and not shutting them away properly at night.

And also the belief that hounds only kill an old, sick fox I don’t think is correct. The foxes I’ve seen being chased don’t look old and sick. Foxes might be quicker in short bursts but hounds will chase them for miles and have better endurance and wear a healthy fox down.

I don’t believe they die from the first bite at all and have seen videos of them having limbs torn off while still alive. This is after they’ve been terrified and exhausted after miles of being chased.

and people can’t argue that it’s a necessary way of keeping the fox population down and then in the next sentence say that hounds can’t catch a healthy fox anyway. Which is it? Both can’t be true.

But what do foxes die of naturally - starvation, eaten alive by eagle/hawk, shot injured slow death

What, you’d rather get ripped to bits?

It's the chase that is inhumane rather than the death. A lurcher is much kinder than a hound if dogs were to be used at all. It's horrible seeing them frothing and their tongues hanging out when they can't keep running anymore. We have a pack nearby and the houndsman is terrible, his dogs are always rioting and the sound of them closing in when I'm just walking alone (fear of unknown dogs) makes me want to be sick at times. I'm at no risk from a hound and I feel like that - I hate to think how a fox feels hearing it or any other wildlife for that matter. I'd take a gut shot over hearing that and trying to keep running as it gets closer and closer.

Hounds are beautiful but the hunt shoots most of them before they reach seniority anyway. Not to mention the pups that are shot if they don't follow well or can't be persuaded to stay on fox. It's a nasty business and I have 0 problem hunting animals with dogs - none treeing hounds are just distasteful to me. A rifle man can take out 20 a night before they know what's happening and most are shot clean as a point of pride.