Are you boycotting Lush?

[MookySpinge]

I am, but wondered what the rest of you think of their decision to support Hunt Sabs - feel it is on a par with any other terrorist group personally. Should probably do a link but iPhone is behaving badly at the moment.

That's one definition of hunting for sure raven - others might think of it as keeping vermin numbers down.

Who knows, but the law is there, and laws must be upheld - all of the laws.

Just emotional twaddle on it's own isn't lobbying or non-violent protest.
I advocate non-violent protest as a way of lobbying to change laws - not sure where you thought I was saying non-violent protest was laziness.

Just being all emotional about something, and feeling that the law should change is laziness.

There has to be work involved for change. If that impetus for that lobbying work is emotion, well and good, but it can't just be emotion without the work.

Well yes re who lives in the countryside I did Igorcist - This is a hackneyed issue which has been chewed over many times, but IMHO and many many others (but probably not many mnetters), the law against hunting with dogs was imposed and lobbied for by people who do not live in the countryside or understand the benefit of country sports & pursuits to rural life and the economy in rural areas.

However, I do fully agree that the law is the law as it stands at present and should be respected.

Members of my family engage in lawful hunting but still have to suffer sabs spraying our horseboxes with graffiti, intrusive videoing and aggressive behaviour. Ffing and Blinding at my DC and peeing on the tyres of our cars and horseboxes etc etc. If I went to London and did this, I would be arrested!

Enough said, I will buy lush curly wurly !!!!!!! (god I'm so shallow)

lol Drayford.

Well, I know it's late, zazen, but your argument's got me muddled now.

Originally you were saying that everyone should obey the law, whatever it might be, or be banged up the slammer.

Now I think you're saying that direct but non-violent protest, ie. breaking the law, is in fact a legitimate way of lobbying for changes in the law, & it's emotional twaddle eg. 'feeling the law should change' but doing nowt about it that you don't hold with.

They look like fairly mutually contradictory positions to me. I must be missing something.

Drayford, I wouldn't graffiti your horsebox, swear at your children or wee on your tyres.

That's nasty, uncivilised behaviour & no way to protest against nasty, uncivilised behaviour.

(Try the Coolaulin conditioner btw. Tames my mad hair beautifully!

Lol @ coolaulin! I've got great regard for that too! You must have hair like mine ravenak!

The argument pro and against hunting with dogs will run and run for ever I think - better to agree to differ with people IME!

I do worry about where this will stop though - sport shooting and fishing are the next targets. A ban on these would seriously hurt rural businesses (my own included) and result in an increase in rural unemployment - particularly in the area I live in. However, this is probably not the forum for a discussion on this - let's see what happens after the next election!

Re the lush boycott - it's all down to conscience and personal opinion at the end of the day. If you feel strongly about this - vote with your purse!

I do. & I will be.

Any excuse for a Lush spendathon.

Still. At least we've got one sort of lunatic fringe in common...

LOL raven - curly wayward hair united - night night!!

Drayford Lovely posts! The thought of people vandalising your property... Quite right - I don't go rampaging around "town" attacking people's cars because they speed - also against the law!

I understand hunting is an emotive issue for many. But for me, logic must prevail. I value lives of humans more than animals, and so when 1000s of people stand to lose their livelihood for the "price" of a few foxes I think we need to be realistic. I think foxes are beautiful - at the same time I've kept chickens.

Similar is (imo) the killing of whales by Inuit people who need the meat/fat to survive.

In real life fluffy ickle bunnies are struck down in their millions by myxomatosis. Nature can be cruel.

I still believe though that the anti-hunting brigade are using the issue to mirror what they feel is a class-war - if only they knew!

Most lawful hunting these days doesn't involve killing anything though, yet Sabs still disrupt the activities just in case it is a front for an illegal form of hunting. I don't understand why so many people think that's ok.

just put the damn chickens away! If you look after your livestock properly, foxes cannot physically get to it. For God's sake, we're meant to be the cleverest species on the planet.

And I DO live in the country. I live slap bang in the middle of hunting country and I know people whose livlihoods would be affected IF the hunting ban was properly enforced (which it generally isn't). That doesn't mean it's a rational way of controlling a population of animals.

The Inuit/whalemeat issue is NOT the same. We do not eat foxes. We do not rely entirely on chicken as a foodstuff. The Inuit people do not generally have the back up of a packet of sausages in the fridge. They NEED that meat, it's the only food they have.

The same cannot be said for Britons and foxhunting.

When you pareit down to the bones, leaving out chickens, leaving out class, all the above are just a spurious excuse to chase a small animal around until you can catch it and kill it.

For the claim 'hunters don't come to your house and injure your pet'.

(Many years ago) We asked the local hunt to refrain from coming into our property after one of our mares was injured.

Sadly they did not stop the next time a livery horse was so spooked he damaged his leg so badly that he had to be destroyed.

I speak as someone who hunted until 25 yrs ago. Many domestic pets have been injured killed in the course of a hunt.

In fact I tried to list to an RSPCA article, but it was down the page so a c&p

June/July.. 1998 Caged foxes found on hunt land, North Yorkshire

September Repeated trespass by hunt, Hertfordshire
Pet cat killed by hounds, South Pembrokeshire

October Hounds rampage across country park, Severn Valley
Hounds killed by train, Shropshire
Hounds killed by passenger train, Pembrokeshire
Hunt master fined after crayfish killed by pollution, Gloucestershire

November Hound killed by car, York
Cat killed by hounds, Shropshire
Sheep killed by hounds, Dorset
Hounds killed by train, Cheshire
Hounds killed by truck, Derbyshire
Decomposing carcasses cause pollution, Monmouthshire
Anti-hunt farmer finds dead fox hanging, Gloucestershire
Hounds overrun animal sanctuary, Lincolnshire

December Hunt trespass farm, Dorset
Pet cat killed by hounds, Llanbister,Wales
Hounds killed in road accident, Co.Durham
Pet cat killed by hounds, North Yorkshire
Hunt horse injured in collision with car, West Sussex
Hunt hounds run wild in crematorium, Warwickshire
Hounds killed on dual carriageway, South Devon

January...1999 Trespass by hunt, West Sussex
Extensive hunt trespass,Kent
Roe deer kicked in the head by huntsman, Devon
Hounds tear through garden and flock of sheep, Shropshire
Fox mistreated by hunt terriermen, Gloucestershire
Artificial earth found on land belonging to hunt, North Yorkshire
Huntsman stamps on fox, New Forest

February Churchills graveyard trampled by hunt, Oxfordshire
Vet finds fox in severe shock, West Sussex

March Cat killed by hounds, Yorkshire
Stag cornered by hounds in school playground, North Devon

April Stag mauled by hounds, Devon

I am neither pro nor anti, but to claim the hunters do not harm to pet animal is ridiculous.

but drayford is making a good point.

the hunt is carrying out a legal activity.......

the sabs are not

and as for them being against animal cruelty.....

Tell that to the hounds when they spray aerosols on their noses, or to my fiend whose pony had to be destroyed, after his eye became horribly infeced by an animal rights protestor stuck a stick in his eye!

and I have never been hunting either, don't actually fancy it.

BUT

I truly think it is far more humane than shooting or gassing, or god forbid snares

www.trapman.co.uk/fox-traps.htm

Of course, that's not as much fun as going Gallopy Gallopy around the countryside, is it?

Excellent posts luckyblackcat. And yes, Hunt Sabs have been harmed and even killed by hunters in the past.
See here

All the arguments used by pro hunting people here really do the cause no favours. People who are anti-hunt have a chip on their shoulder/are working class/do not ride/do not live in the country - I mean really, the arrogance is breathtaking. I am very middle class, spent much of my life in the country [the hunt used to ride past my window on New Year's day] and ride. I am still opposed to chasing an animal to its death for miles with a pack of dogs simply for enjoyment.

very kind colditz.......relying on a gamekeeper to check the trap regularly, with probably no water, gnawing the mesh trying to escape for hours, waiting for someone to come and kill it..... hardly humane and instantaneous......

and pofaced......I would say that there are extreme minorities on both sides. it's just that the anti hunt ones are so hypocritical!

'the anti-hunt ones are so hypocritical'

please explain cazbodly. What, pray, could be more hypocritical than claiming 'oh those nasty people hurt our hounds/horses/us' at the same time as pursuing a sport that kills animals, and is actively aggressive to people that oppose it?

I can't bear Lush, it makes me sneeze uncontrollably.

However, I may be donning a gas mask and venturing inside now.

There was an interview with the owners of Lush on R4 on Thursday (about their support of Plane Stupid) and they said they make an effort to give funding to people who take direct action for their causes. So supporting Hunt Sabs would be in line with that philosophy.

I ride. I am a horse owner and have ridden for over 10 years. I live on the edges of Epping Forest and nothing gives me greater joy than to go gallopy gallopy gallopy through the wilderness. I love doing cross-country. I don't see why an animal has to die for that, though....

And the urban fox in my back garden keeps the grey squirrel population down very nicely

Why can the gamekeeper not check the trap regulary? Why have you assumed the fox would be in there for hours? Why have you assumed there would be no food and water? These trapped are baited with food.

If a gamekeeper is out all night shooting at foxes, a gamekeeper can be out all night checking the traps, no?

And apparently, foxes do not fear their own death as humans do, according to the prohunting lobby, so it wouldn't be 'waiting for someone to come and kill it' - it would be temporarily stuck.

because they are protesting against the cruelty to animals by doing the self same thing

Yes I'll be boycotting Lush. Most of the hunt sabs I've seen engage in very horrible behaviour - including an incident I witnessed where an 8 year old girl fell off her horse and they threw mud at her. This was a legal hunt as well.

I never mentioned food - i am aware how the traps work.....

but come on realistically - you think that is preferable?

a game keeper is not going to go round checking all night - he wouldn't catch any!

So,, you are asking me if a humane, non injuring trap where the fox will sit for an hour or two before being released elsewhere is preferable to being chased for two hours across open countryside by dogs, to an inevitable death by either shotgun or 'accidental' hound damage?

I'm surprised you feel you need to ask, but yes, I do think the humane trap is preferable.