to think fox hunting is not a big deal at all?

[chandellina]

and should never have been the subject of national debate, since it affects about 100 people? (ok, maybe more, but not many)

I was a vegetarian when it was banned, btw. I just think it's such a non-issue, and can't believe it is still being trotted out as a reason not to vote Tory.

Brits have always been more into animals than people: the RSPCA came into existence 50 years before the NSPCC.

FWIW: I have no problem with foxes being humanely culled if necessary. I also have no problem with horsey people going and riding cross-country. What I do find scary is the sector of the population that thinks it is necessary to combine this cross country riding with chasing down a fox for miles and miles and then watching it being ripped to pieces to get any pleasure from it. That is slightly disturbing. If you need to cull animals then shoot them - you don't need to create this whole ritual around it, and it's certainly a bit weird to enjoy it.

Plus, I like urban foxes - we even feed ours sometimes and I was inordinately proud of the cubs we had running around the garden...

Yes. We all agree, (well, to a point) but the point the poster is making is that it isn't a big enough issue to be a national government debate of the size it was!

I've always taken the piss out of the yanks for voting in people on religious/abortion views grounds - and yet in the UK parliament is elected on the basis of Basil Brush!

Boom boom!

No one who has seen the devastation caused by a fox in a hen run would oppose hunting.A fox kills all the hens viciously-tears them to shreds sometimes and maybe eats one.Hunting with dogs is less cruel than shooting,trapping or poison.I dont hunt and dont vote Tory nor do I climb on party political band wagons.

I agree with the OP. The country is near enough bankrupt - I would rather politicians put their time into sorting that out.

YANBU

fox hunting was a national disgrace.It is cruel and barbaric, and not reflective of our supposed civilised society.The reason people still link it to not voting conservative is that many old party farts were supporters.We do not need that sort of mentality in the driving seat of our country,thank you.Boycott peanut face Dave for this reason,amongst of course many many others.

While I (too) consider the issue over foxes should not be anywhere near top of the list, it's the type of thing which means the Conservatives can end up on the wrong end of voters' opinion.

You only have to watch the Eddie Izzard video clip to see that it is a big enough issue to be mocked, and about half way through (1m 35s or so) he talks about "Thatcher's children"... "they'd take us back to 3m unemployed, 15% interest rates, tax cuts for the rich, fox hunting and the feudal system, given half a chance"

For all the other problems "in common" between those in the countryside and those in towns, the red coats and ritual of hunting with dogs make it appear a "rich man's pleasure". It's not a "sport" in the way that hockey, snooker, or even polo can be seen as sport, but makes the supporters (esp if they are Conservatives) appear like some of the gun carrying Republicans, and a more than a little dangerous.

The Conservatives brought it up, whether it was as a diversionary tactic or whether they consider it "significant" I don't know, but the sooner they stop talking about it, the sooner people might take note of their other policies. (Hope those against will not forget the idea if they may be tempted to vote tactically... if it is a manifesto item it will not be forgotten completely by the party.)

While they continue to highlight it, they do themselves no favours.

It would be safest for them to drop it like a hot coal and never return to it, but it's their look-out and all the more reason, in my view, why the old stereotypes of Labour and Conservative will "turn off" so many voters... they cannot get past niggling matters and continue childish "finger pointing" despite promises a long time ago to give up "Punch and Judy" politics.

It seems to me listening to goings on in the Commons, that rather than give straight answers, the front benchers are always after a laugh, always deflecting the question and avoid answering by changing subject (usually to some past blunder of the opposite side) rather than clearly saying what is being done, or what will be done. It's pathetic, it's not clever, and the public are surely sick of it.

It takes three weeks for an animal to die of starvation. Not a nice way to go you'll agree.

So what happens to old foxes -- do they spend their twilight years in foxy nursing homes cared for by cheerful polish ferrets until they pass away in their sleep?
Sadly no.

Assuming that old or injured foxes die slowly once they can no longer capture food, being torn to shreds by a pack of hounds (the description used by anti-hunt protesters) sounds quite a swift and humane end! And it will be the old and injured that will be caught by the hounds first.

I don't think that hunting is an admirable hobby but we need to be realistic.

josiez lets transfer that logic then and feed the grannies to the lions.

Incredible - a fox hunting topic with lots of people pointing out the perverseness of spending so much parliamentary time on it when people then go home to their battery-raised roast dinners.

There is much complexity in the arguement for and against fox hunting, and it's really not just about a bunch of people enjoying seeing a fox ripped apart (that's not the enjoyable part anyway, but IMO it's a clean and quick kill to a problem pest when the only other options are potentially terrible for the fox).

I wouldn't go grouse shooting but I totally support it in many circumstances. Not because I want to be able to grouse shoot, but because those who pay for the experience allow the grouse fields to be properly maintained as open countryside, where thousands of animals, insects and birds can thrive, meaning that the loss of a few immensely benefits thousands upon thousands of others.

Indeed, in a recent trip to Africa there was a similar arguement. A group of businessmen wanted to start a hunting lodge with limited rights to hunt elephant and other big game (there are certain animals in some countries where limited licenses are available for this). The cost to the participants was extraordinary (tens of thousands of dollars) but their money, in return for the shooting of 10 or 20 elephants per year, paid for thousands of square miles of bush to be properly fenced and protected, thus allowing endangered animals to survive and thrive, and whole areas of wasteland to be returned to nature.

Clearly this is different to the fox hunting debate but I'm writing it to show that something even as apparently abhorrent as shooting elephants () CAN be overall a positive thing - or more that it's not as clear cut as saying, "Shooting elephants? That's totally sick and horrendous". Which to most people, including me, it is, but I would still feel that on balance such a hunting lodge was a good thing.

The main difference between fox hunting and actual blood sports such as bear baiting, cock fighting, bull fighting and so on, is that there is a POINT to fox hunting - indeed several. The others are just hopelessly sick and twisted. I personally detest fishing (and returning) and think it's cruel and unusual treatment of a sentient creature. But I am quite happy with fishing for trout, etc, which are then eaten.

It's nice to see so many people confirming that it's not just a "bunch of toffs" out for blood and a tail.

i was just thinking about fishing - you see it all over the place. Maybe not an issue because it's less class-charged?

darkandstormy. thats the trouble with 'animal lovers' they anthropomorphise animals. A fox isn't a granny. it is an animal. your granny wont sit and starve slowly in the wild, she is a human being.

Carrots, very good points. people dont look at the bigger picture. They dont see conservation, or jobs, or countryside maintenance. lets stop hunting and make people redundant. foxes are more important!

chandellina.. dont worry, when the animal lovers have finished with hunting, shooting will follow then fishing. and all the time, the country will be going down the pan, because people are to busy to worry about what matters!

gailforceone there is a party which would end factory farming they are THE GREEN PARTY i think i will be voting for them as am becoming more disillusioned with the labour party.

Support your local farmers market where you can.Although I wince at their hideous mark ups....£15 for a free range chicken around here! hence why we don't eat much chicken.

You can't win sometimes.

Oh and support CIWF

'No one who has seen the devastation caused by a fox in a hen run would oppose hunting'

Actually, I have, & I would.

No-one's disputing that foxes are a PITA if you're trying to farm chickens.

& as soon as someone manages to convince me that the most cost-effective way to (possibly) despatch one fox is to deploy a couple of dozen dogs, lots of big expensive horses & an equal number of bloodthirsty berks to sit on the horses, then fair dos.

I'm still struggling to get my head round it as effective pest control, given that for every fox they catch another 10 get run over...

Look, if I kept chickens, I'd do my best to make their accommodation fox-proof. Failing that, I suppose I might sit up with a shotgun, before I put my faith in the local hunt to rip up the local fox & not, say, my cat.

It's just LARPing but with more gore & less street-cred.

I don't understand the point that fox hunting is not an issue because of intensive farming. They are both issues, one does not cancel the other. If a small group of people were wiped out, would they be any less important than a larger group. It is not a numbers game, it is a question of ethics. Banning fox hunting paves the way to tackle other such issues. Does this mean that dancing bears should not have been banned even though it was probably a low number? And for those who say there is a point to fox hunting that is not prevalent with bear dancing, you could argue the same for intensive farming. But more to the point it seems an incredibly ineffective way to cull foxes. Does that argument suggest that we find a blood sport to deal with rats, squirrels and other vermin. It just all sounds like much defensive posturing to me.

And as far as the inside of a chicken coop goes, I do not believe in the eye for an eye philosophy. Cats toy with mice before they kill. It is an element of their nature and yet I forgive my cats. But you can not convince me that it is an element of human nature to turn death into a sport. And it is not quick, the chase has been shown to cause enormous stress upon the fox not to mention the questionable use of the dogs.

There is nothing that can convince me that fox hunting is ethically right and that makes it an important issue for me and an influential one when it comes to voting as intensive farming would be and I would love to see that on all their agendas.

But to add this thread is an exercise in futility. It was absolutely bound to turn into a debate on the pros (?) and cons of fox hunting. I personally believe it is important to politics as they had the power to bring this legislation in.

emily you are absolutely right to say that intensive farming still being a problem does not make it ok to fox hunt. The point being made here is actually not that. What is being said about this link is that it's strange that many people who would be completely against fox hunting will eat battery farmed chicken and pork, which means that their understanding of animal cruelty is warped.

The numbers of foxes killed by fox hunting when it was legal was relatively small, but made a significant impact on the fox population - and more interestingly it targets the poor doers, weaker, often older foxes, who are more likely to attack farm animals anyway, as fresher foxes are better able to avoid the hounds, and foxes in good health are much less often desperate enough to get close to human residences. The good thing about FH is there's either a totally clean kill, or the fox is uninjured, unlike shooting where even the best marksman will sometimes wound a fox, leaving it to die in agony. What happens when a pack of hounds catches a fox is that the first hound will kill it instantly (usually a bite to the neck or back), then the rest of the hounds will pile in and tear it apart. This sounds horrid, but it's an instant death which from the fox's persective is much better than dying over a week or more from a gunshot wound.

raven the horse riders don't get paid to ride after the fox. They pay to do it. Therefore there's no economical comparison in that sense. Their payment keeps the hounds and their keepers. Then in turn the hunt provides (provided) a service to the farmers, which kept the farmers' costs lower and saved animals from being killed by the foxes. Any other method of fox control costs the farmers money.

However I'm not entirely in agreement that not making people redundant is more important than foxes. Any form of actual animal cruelty is more important than human jobs, in my opinion. Therefore, L'Oreal, who are well known for their animal experimentation (and therefore are under an International boycott), has no products which cross my front door - and I could care less if they went bust, making people redundant. I wouldn't support bull fighting even though it's a huge industry in some countries. But there are extremely important economical arguments which are all tied together, and are part of a bigger picture.

I do understand that many people consider fox hunting to be cruel. For reasons which I think are well considered, I do not, and although I've been slated - called evil and worse - elsewhere on MN because of my views on this (which is somewhat unreasonable given that those people who made the comments know very little about me as a whole), I continue to maintain my belief. I believe this in the context of being absolutely passionate about animal compassion, and yet, going back to the OP, I remain stunned at how Labour spent so much time and effort forcing this ban through, when there are so many genuinely awful animal cruelties going on, such as battery farming. All I can conclude is that while fox hunting is (erroneously) considered to be an upper class "sport", the purchase of battery produced meat might be considered by Labour to be a lower class choice, and given that the working and lower middle classes make up so much of the voting numbers, one can draw their own conclusions.

"However I'm not entirely in agreement that not making people redundant is more important than foxes." Meaning that if I was convinced that fox hunting was not the least cruel method of fox control and/or not necessary, then I would support banning it despite it causing redundancies.

YABU and a bit Tory.

It's barbaric and a national embarrassment.

Next subject.....

It's a big deal because the way we choose to relate to non-human animals defines us as a society. Foxes are a pest if you keep sheep, ducks, hens. So cull them - fine. Making a sport of it is the bit that makes it unacceptable.

And BTW I can think of many many reasons not to vote tory - don't even need to consider hunting.

Good post carrots.