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LoCo -I'm not sure that management of hunts includes creation of sets for the them and effectivly breeding them for 'sport' in a similar way to game birds are managed is acctually correct TJ, it's certainly not something I have ever come across in my past career working in the countryside
Proven to happen often - no question at all. Its all kept hush hush by the hunts but it is common practice. Read the league against cruel sports evidence on it. seethe court cases
there is no hunt without he prey. most of the earths areknown about - they could easily be eliminated.
[i]lamping them with a rifle is alot more efficient means of control[/i]
I suspect shooting would be even more efficient - you have to get really close to hit them with the wrong end of a rifle 😉
Read the league against cruel sports evidence on it
while i don't disbelieve you TJ (it seems plausible that it happens), i wouldn't believe anything the league has to say on the subject.
Phil - its commonpractice to support fox populations ith artifical earhts and feeding
http://www.acigawis.co.uk/artificial_earths.htm
Sorry not convinced, but then the area I was working in had pretty good habitats to support a full range of species.
Not pro on hunting with dogs but have seen both sides of this issue over the last 15 years.
Proven to happen often - no question at all. Its all kept hush hush by the hunts but it is common practice. Read the league against cruel sports evidence on it. seethe court cases
HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!
I assume that is meant to be funny?
How about the telegrpah then?
HE Beaufort Hunt, which the Prince of Wales and his friend Camilla Parker Bowles follow keenly, has been accused of breaking rules by breeding foxes for the chase.Undercover video footage, presented to Newsnight, the BBC2 programme, by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, allegedly showed a Beaufort employee leaving food for foxes outside artificial earths built by the hunt. The footage appears to show its official terrierman, Thomas Burton, shovelling offal on to stone slabs. A sheep was also allegedly put out.
Simon Hart,[b] of the Countryside Alliance's Campaign for Hunting, said: "There is no secret about artificial earths.[/b] We took the Burns inquiry to see artificial earths."Let's wait until Monday to see what they have to say about them. The foxes are not forced to live there. The earths are built to encourage them to live where they can be hunted safely and do not cause a nuisance, which means not by the motorway and not by the pheasant pen."
Alastair Jackson, the association's director, said: "If any rules have been broken we will act swiftly." In some hunt countries, he said, it was common practice to build artificial earths, not unlike nesting boxes, in which foxes were free to come and go.
There was no law to prevent food being put down for foxes. He said: "Fox hunting is about controlling the fox population, it is not about exterminating the fox population." Supporters of hunting said it was a frequent practice for animal lovers to feed foxes, even urban ones, to see them in their gardens.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1341954/Beaufort-Hunt-broke-rules-on-fox-breeding.html
The league admitted it cannot definitively prove that the people who maintain the earths or feed the foxes are connected to local hunts.
From your link TJ. Like I said, anything the league says has to be put into context of them liking to talk bollox.
So if fox hunting does not control the numbers, how do you explain the increase in the fox population?
Teh Beaufort hunt has admitted building artificial earths and feeding foxes
OK the odd case maybe, but it's the Royals, TJ you know they don't count and can do what they want, like MPs 😉
Religious slaughter is a valid point.. Do you uphold the freedom for people to kill animals in a barbaric way due to their religious/cultural beliefs yet not others due to their historic/cultural pastimes?
Oh, I do enjoy these threads where
i) TJ comes out with wild allegations that are unsubstantiated
ii) TJ spends the rest of the thread digging his way out of a hole or arguing the point on a tiny, tiny side issue because its the only thing he's got left in his armoury.
iii) Someone asks TJ a perfectly reasonable, on topic and relevant question, and he spends half the thread avoiding answering it in an increasingly convoluted fashion, because he knows that his answer completley reveals his position to be both fundementally flawed and hypocritical...
Yes lamping them with a rifle is alot more efficient means of control
I really don't want to get involved but though I should point out that hunting certainly has a couple of advantages over shooting;
a) You will never, ever end up with a wounded fox from hunting. The fox either gets away or is killed near-instantly (albeit in a way that isn't TJ approved).
b) Shooting is totally indiscriminate whereas hunting actively selects for the culling of injured/elderly foxes.
Loco is that not MP's in general?
RE fox number.. I've seen a massive increase in the number of foxes along my night time biking routes over the last few years.
timmys - Membera) You will never, ever end up with a wounded fox from hunting. The fox either gets away or is killed near-instantly (albeit in a way that isn't TJ approved).
rubbish - it is chased for a significant period of time. Nothing near instant about it
Loco - its a common practice but well hidden. there is a a huge amount of data on artifical earths and fox feeding.
Religious slaughter is a valid point.. Do you uphold the freedom for people to kill animals in a barbaric way due to their religious/cultural beliefs yet not others due to their historic/cultural pastimes?
Fancy answering Elzorillo's question TJ?
Edited that so it's 'wingless' Bren 😉
rubbish - it is chased for a significant period of time. Nothing near instant about it
Pretty sure once it's caught it's pretty damn quick....
Zulu - the "wild allegations" are well proven and indeed accepted as true by the hunts now in many cases. see the telegraph quote. Loads more data / proof / court cases if yo wnat to see them
Once we've banned all guns (as some people want), shooting won't be an option.
As I said.. I don't actually know anyone who hunts but I know a few sabs (hunt saboteurs) and you could never wish to meet a more vicious, blinkered, self righteous, downright evil group of people.
I'm naturally not that sympathetic to hunting but I also get really upset and frustrated when foxes get my lambs. And they do seem to be on the increase.
So I veer towards grateful that there are people out there who want to control foxes. Not in the way I would - but then I'm not sure that the other alternative - lamping - in which a bloke sits around on a hillside in the dark with a gun and a light is that healthy either. Wouldn't want to run into him nightriding...
Druidh - as you perfectly well know I have no problem with people who need guns as a tool to control vermin
It's little more than dog fighting. Foxes are related to the canine species, canidae species vulpes vrs Canidae Species Canis.
Eating meat and hunting are seperate issues. Don't confuse the two. Hunting for food, no problem with that. Hunting because it fun is as TJ said.
Fox numbers may or maynot need controlling. Either leave it for natural selection or the motorcar.
Leave it for natural selection, get real!
Numbers will increase ten fold.
Have any of you anti-hunt seen the damage 1 fox can do?
Lamping is only effective for so long, why do you think the fox gets the name "Wise old fox"
"Numbers will increase ten fold". Explain how you reach that statement please. Also explain damage to what?
Bren - the farm my family come from is still run by people we know as a poultry farm. there is a fox earth on the farm, the owners refuse to allow the hunt on the land. there is no issue with poultry being taken
I am against fox hunting for the simple reason it has no utlity.
Yes it does - social action.
It may be outside of any social action that you recognise but just because it does not conform to your ( or my ) worldview, it ce3rtainly does not mean that it has no utility.
It is cultural action and if your only argument is utility - you have no argument.
trailmonkey
The hunts argue they are needed to control fox numbers but that is shown to be false
if its purely social then drag hunts are the way to go surely - no need for the killing.
TandemJeremy - MemberBren - the farm my family come from is still run by people we know as a poultry farm. there is a fox earth on the farm, the owners refuse to allow the hunt on the land. there is no issue with poultry being taken
Same as the farm I used to work on, we never lost any poultry or lambs to foxes for all the years I worked there.
There was more than enough food left about for foxes that they did not need to come bother our stock.
Our boss also banned fox hunting from his land, mostly because of the mess the followers used to leave.
It’s the people who go fox hunting that I can’t tolerate. A cull of rightwing toffs would be most welcome.
a) You will never, ever end up with a wounded fox from hunting. The fox either gets away or is killed near-instantly (albeit in a way that isn't TJ approved).
Pretty sure once it's caught it's pretty damn quick....
Pretty sure it wasn't on the four or five I've seen. Though there wasn't much fox left to ask.
I don't like hunting, I'm vegetarian and so posh I get out of the shower to pee.
if its purely social then drag hunts are the way to go surely - no need for the killing.
Thing is I'd be well up for that - as the 'hare' or riding, it'd be a hoot.
Are you sure they weren't just after your forks? really cause havoc with the drag hunts round our way do those Vans..
uwe-r - Member
It’s the people who go fox hunting that I can’t tolerate. A cull of rightwing toffs would be most welcome.
A most well informed point of view. It's an honour to have such a wealth of expertise available to learn from.
falkirk-mark - Member
I am with TJ on this, if they need contolling send someone out with a rifle to shoot it.
In the gun ownership [s]thread[/s] squabble a few weeks ago, someone suggested using a captive bolt to cull stags. Perhaps that could be used on foxes too?
it's the "Hunt Sabs" I can't abide. Trespassing, videoing kids at the Hunt without permission (closet peados), Self-righteous, know it all (usually incorrectly), scruffy, hippy, townie, scabs.
They don't unnerstan aaaar ways.
They need to butt out of local cruelty issues and stay on their carbon Epics. IMHO
As far as I understand, I have no first hand knowledge of fox hunting except watching it occasionally, but my lovely wife being a good Norfolk girl, her father was master of the terriers.
i think the first misconception is that this is purely a sport for the posh, my father in law certainly isn't he was a lorry driver full time and part time butcher to make ends meet. Both of the local pubs in their village closed when the hunting stopped and the hunts did not frequent them and many of the hounds were put down. Many of the hunters and those working for the hunt were normal country people who have lost jobs.
I also understand that the hunt had a wider role other than just the hunting itself, in return for allowing the hunt over the farmers land, they would in return offer services such as removing sick animals for slaughter etc.
Lastly, and I may be wrong here, but i understand that a trained pack of dogs can actually kill a fox almost instantly, whereas even a good shot may take a few attempts to kill it outright.
I do not neccesarily condone blood sports, but I think that anyone that eats a chicken from a battery farm, or veal, cannot then turn round a state that they abide hunting. I have worked in an abatoir and seen the practises there with my own eyes.
Many of the hunt sabotuers that I spoke to also were against shooting, where the bird had lived a good life outside, then would quite happily eat chicken from a super market, yet did not see the irony.
I think that unfortunately it is perceived as being a sport for the posh inbreed, when actually it served a wider role and provided jobs and income.
scud - and all of that could be done if they did drag hunts.
It’s the people who go fox hunting that I can’t tolerate. A cull of rightwing toffs would be most welcome
Quite. I don't agree with the entire sentiment, but it is mildly amusing to see the pastimes of the establishment being legislated against.
I think that for most hunts now, they are legally drag hunting, but even in doing that they are still facing such critiscm and abuse from hunt sabotuers that many have drifted away from the sport and many jobs have been lost as a result.
I do not know you TJ, but you are obviously an intelligent man, your comment that killing animals for meat is a "utility" i cannot agree with.
Having briefly worked in an abatoir (before getting frostbite working there) the cruelty i saw to the chickens and turkeys and the way that they were dealt with, far outweighs any cruelty in fox hunting. A fox has a healthy life in the country (not the scrawny urban fox) and is killed in seconds in a hunt.
Yet the chickens and turkeys i saw being killed hung upside down for a long time, often dying of heart failure before being electrocuted.
Yet if we suggested banning cheap meat, can you imagine how many people would be up in outrage then??
I have found that those people i know who live in the countryside and understand the countryside, are far more likely to grow their own veg, without the use of chemicals, far more likely to actually care where their meat comes from and the life it has had and far more likely to actually understand hunting and the implications of vermin control.
scud - killing animals to eat - the utility is that they provide food.
It’s the people who go fox hunting that I can’t tolerate. A cull of rightwing toffs would be most welcome
Quite. I don't agree with the entire sentiment, but it is mildly amusing to see the pastimes of the establishment being legislated against.
Except that the vast majority of people on hunts are ordinary people, not "rightwing toffs", who work full time in ordinary jobs and just happen to enjoy riding horses.
The difference in riding between drag hunts and "standard" hunts is the same as the difference between trail centres and exploring natural terrain btw.