Husband is insistent on joining trail hunt tomorrow

[FairViewRosie25]

Not happy. I know they trail hunt but they still take dogs and have their fair share of the sabs.

Do you acknowledge that foxes and other wildlife get caught up in it?

This happens occasionally. It is often inadvertent and most hunts operate entirely within the law.

I agree that the issue of out of control dogs is nit comparable though - the vast scale of killings through utter ignorance and incompetence far outstrips the few foxes unlawfully killed each year.

I’m not ok with the sight of any animals getting ripped apart, be that our cat that was killed by a fox or my friends ducks that were picked off one by one by a fox or a fox itself. Trail hunting is not fox hunting though. If you accept a million+ ‘accidents’ by dog owners, why won’t you accept a few accidents by hunts?

These stupid "what about" questions are so feeble. The issue is actually enjoying and making a sport out of the process of watching an animal get hunted down and going through the process of being killed. It has nothing to do with being satisfied that a necessary job has been done in killing pests. It's not as if anyone is there encouraging the pest controller to get dressed up, go through a long drawn-out process of hunting, terrorising and chasing the rat and then cheering them on whilst they tear the rat apart, is it?

But it's alright if you outsource it, right? Then you don't have to think about it. You just decide you want fried chicken that night.

I read the report and am shocked at the high numbers of ‘hunt havoc’. There aren’t that many hunts and they’re not every weekend, so aside from the cruelty of foxes/hares being killed, it isn’t a sport I would support. If other sports were so antisocial, they would be banned.

You don’t get running clubs taking runners onto railway tracks or regularly trespassing on private land. If there are cycle races they have to work with the council to produce risk assessments on open/closed roads. Do hunts have to go through those loopholes, considering the number of people and horses, and the impact on the public?

Actually the opposite is true. Deer numbers are increasing because human wiped out all the predators and so we could do with more people going deer stalking.

Rats are killed by making them bleed to death from inside. Because humans don't like sharing space with rats. So that is fine, is it?

Yes, thanks for noticing. I should have interrogated the numbers more closely. The NFU says it’s a value if £2.4 million worth of animals. At approx £100 per sheep (quite a common prey for pet dogs) that’s about 24,000 animals. Plus the 64,000 other dogs and some humans. Utterly horrific.

I'd be really careful of the "how you feel about it" line if I were you.

Cats are not solely responsible for the decline of our native bird species. Nor do they have a human concept of "sport" however much we may causally choose to assign them anthropomorphic characteristics.

Hounds are not farm animals like cattle are, either. If you really do consider them no different from beasts bred for the food industry then sadly, yes, they are likely to be culled due to a drop in demand.

Do I think that's right? Not particularly, no, but then for a start I recognise them as being a distinctly different group to cows & sheep.

Rats are vermin in the most widely recognised sense the world over, a notorious public health risk. Yes this means there are companies such as Renokil in existence.

Having been raised in the country and lived in urban centres I recognise foxes for what they are, and what they do, and they are not rats.

More horrific than watching an exhausted fox or hare get hunted down and torn apart by a pack of hounds?

How many cat owners actively encourage them to hunt birds? In my experience, most seem to discourage it by neutering cats, putting bells round their necks etc.

You are making quite serious accusations of unlawful behaviour against a lot of people you have never met here. Are you sure you can back that up with evidence? The hunt monitors can’t seem to dredge up any more.

The actual figure given was 18-20,000. Agreed, it is still too many, but no-one condones any of it as legal, let alone encourages it as a sport.

I'd be really careful of the "how you feel about it" line if I were you.

On the contrary. That is the most important line. Because how you feel about killing an animal is what this is all about.

Hounds are not farm animals like cattle are, either. If you really do consider them no different from beasts bred for the food industry then sadly, yes, they are likely to be culled due to a drop in demand.

Hounds are totally like cattle. They are there for a reason. They are not pets. But because people have dogs as pets, they get a bit emotionally confused about hounds.

Rats are vermin in the most widely recognised sense the world over, a notorious public health risk. Yes this means there are companies such as Renokil in existence.

Because it suits humans to kill the rats.

Having been raised in the country and lived in urban centres I recognise foxes for what they are, and what they do, and they are not rats.

They pretty much are, in urban areas. Just bigger ones.

Rats are killed by making them bleed to death from inside

No, this is not "fine"

Because humans don't like sharing space with rats
Respectfully, I suggest you do some reading if you think the need to manage the wild rat population is because we "don't like sharing space" with them.

If trail hunting genuinely wasn't chasing foxes. Then why do I see the hired heavies with masks, quad bikes and terrier boxes drive past everytime a hunt gathers in my village?

What have the guys on quad bikes got to do with foxes? Do you have evidence that all hunts are acting unlawfully?

Hunts aren’t necessary. They are outdated and cause numerous other anti social issues aside from the horrific killing of foxes which does happen, probably much more often than you’d be happy to admit.

And yes before you say it, dog ownership isn’t necessary either and I believe there should be stricter sanctions around dog ownership in this country. Every day there is a thread on here about some drama involving an off lead or out of control dog. It is a far bigger problem in terms of scale and is therefore much harder to tackle.

I would welcome a ban on trail hunting and I’d welcome stricter laws on dog ownership.

You really should educate yourself more widely.

So can you please tell us how you feel about foxes being killed in a horrible way for sport? None of this whataboutery or comparisons to rats or cats.

Why are you finding it so difficult to answer?

Large-scale rat infestations are dealt with that way, via single use quick acting poisons. It's the most human way of dealing with that issue. And, yet again, no-one is making a sport out of it or having fun watching them get torn apart. We have to deal with rat infestations as they spread dangerous diseases. Hunters don't have to exterminate the foxes, deer and hares that get killed by so-called trail hunts.

It’s ok to have different views to your husband. You can disagree vehemently and still find enough in common to have a good relationship. I’m a privileged townie who doesn’t get close to animals beyond petting dogs and feeding birds but I understand other people live differently.

This thread is about trail hunting.

However, my interest is in how people have decided that how we feel about killing animals is the important thing. I kill a rat by making it bleed internally? That's OK. I shoot a pheasant for fun? That's bad!!!

What we are talking about here, is hypocrisy. If I kill, or subcontract the killing of, an animal because I want a KFC or a steak, that's fine. Even though the eating is fun. But if somebody else kills an animal for fun, that is BAD!! But if they kill the same type of animal for hygiene, that is GOOD!!

Oh, you're going to have to read up on deer. There is an infestation.

It happens frequently. Because the humans have specifically trained the hounds to chase the scent of foxes and kill them.

What this thread shows is that the debate about hunting isn’t actually about animals at all. It’s about people. Most of the vehement anti-hunters on the thread have accepted that humans do many uncontroversial things (pet ownership, rat killing, meat eating) that result in equal or greater animal suffering to fox hunting (even the illegal fox-killing kind). But the difference is whether they’re done for direct pleasure or not.

Obviously a dying animal doesn’t care whether it’s being killed for the pleasure of the hunt or the pleasure of fried chicken or the convenience of a rat-free home. But people care passionately about fox hunting in a way they don’t about those other forms of animal suffering. Because it’s not about the animals at all. It’s about the humans, and which activities we believe to be edifying or degrading for humans to enjoy.

Very nicely put.

Spot on