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I find setting dogs onto a fox a pretty distasteful and think drag hunting is a good compromise.
Drag/Trail hunting (if we must split hairs) is really just a useful cover to carry on Fox hunting...
The issue seems to be that the current law not being enforced.
It's been law for a decade and a half, hunts have been working round it since day one, non-compliance with said law is now a well polished act. "Enforcement" is pretty reliant on concerned, private citizens doing the detection. It's almost as if it's not really a policing priority, Imagine that, the police not wanting to fully enforce a law that happens to affect wealthy country dwellers and countryside alliance headbangers.
My comment about raves was trying to look at each side.
If you say so.
But perhaps it's a good proxy for fox hunting actually. Illegal raves haven't really been an issue for the last couple of decades, and strangely enough were made a priority for policing pretty rapidly when they emerged, fox hunting somehow seems to be a harder activity to actually stop.
The key differentiator is arguably the demography of the participants? Oh and the levels of animal cruelty involved.
Yeh bloody hippies leaving lsd tabs for poor rabbits to ingest.
Car driver in “country roads are just for me to use “ shocker.
No different to a flock of sheep being moved on a road.
And the fact it was hounds is irrelevant, it was other road users.
As has already been pointed out this is a plainly stupid comment
cookeaa
Full MemberDrag/Trail hunting (if we must split hairs) is really just a useful cover to carry on Fox hunting…
TBH the difference is that drag hunting was conceived as a way of hunting without a fox- yes it can be abused but it's got a legit purpose. Whereas trail hunting is for accidentally hunting foxes.
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'humanely' always makes me chuckle..... there is no such things as 'humanely' taking an animals life.
Be it a fox being 'controlled' via a trap, the pigs you eat getting gassed to death, the chickens being hung upside down and having their throats slit, cows being electrocuted etc etc.
Rubbish
There are humane ways to kill an animal.
there is no such things as ‘humanely’ taking an animals life.
You could kill them with kindness?
TBH the difference is that drag hunting was conceived as a way of hunting without a fox- yes it can be abused but it’s got a legit purpose. Whereas trail hunting is for accidentally hunting foxes.
The definitions I am aware of (and I grant you they might not be correct) was that Drags are normally along pre-planned routes/in defined areas, they can and do include a scent trail and hounds, but are intended more to give the Horses a stretch...
While Trail hunts are a bit more "freestyle" the trail(s) being set more randomly, on the day and supposedly to give the dogs a bit of a challenge...
Both are open to abuse as the trail setter might (utterly by accident of course) splash some extra piss adjacent to a fox den or two. I'll grant you Trail hunts are probably better cover, but I'm sure a drag will accidentally result in a dead fox from time to time...
Essentially both are "training exercises" for the animals, for an activity they'll never be involved in... But somehow frequently are.
foxes also hunt rabbits and berries
My money is on Berry!
but I’m sure a drag will accidentally result in a dead fox from time to time…
Drag hunts use artifical scents and, in some cases, dont even use foxhounds. Even hunt sabs seem to think they are okay and given they are the most motivated opponents to fox hunting I go with their view.
CountZero
I can promise you, you will never suddenly come across a flock of sheep appearing at high speed over a wall or hedge bordering a narrow lane. Same goes for cattle.
Have to disagree with you on that one @CountZero. OH's car was quite severely damaged when around two hundred milk cows came charging over a wall out of the woods and she was terrified. Turns out that the cows had just been let out after wintering indoors and a gamekeeper on a shoot had left a gate open and the cows went a bit mad with their new found freedom. Also, sheep can and will regularly jump walls onto the road, usually knocking the wall down in the process.
Regarding controling fox numbers, the hunt is/was extremely inefficient. I regularly have to visit gamekeeper's premises and there is usually a hanging display of ten or more fox tails somewhere around that seems to get regularly refreshed.
cookeaa
Full MemberThe definitions I am aware of (and I grant you they might not be correct) was that Drags are normally along pre-planned routes/in defined areas, they can and do include a scent trail and hounds, but are intended more to give the Horses a stretch…
The magic words there are "pre-planned". Because if you plan out your route and you "accidentally" flush a fox every time you go out, it's a bit unsubtle. Not to mention it's easier for landowners to challenge/prevent access. Trail hunting was invented to deal with that- as admitted by the master of the foxhounds association, it's only there to provide a "smokescreen"
Drag hunting is a legitimate activity. Trail hunting is a smokescreen for killing foxes
I could see what you were saying Brads 🙂
Did I not read somewhere, possibly here tl;dr that huntmasters were leaving chicken carcasses about the land to encourage foxes to stay in that area.
Nothing would surprise me about those dicks.
I don’t know why they bother with horses and dogs when they can just build an artificial den, chase the fox out with a terrier and then use a gardening fork to torture it. Seems a totally legit way of controlling vermin.
Only thing done wrong in that video is the idiotic dispatch.
The fox should have been flushed to a gun.
The earlier “torture” was actually removing the terrier and the net.
That job is something I’ve done in the past many times but always with a shotgun.
Not in an artificial earth but certainly in maintained earths.
So what’s the point of an artificial or maintained earth if not to encourage foxes into an area and keep them there? Presumably, if they’re vermin you don’t want them around.
It doesn’t work like that.
Foxes will fill any void left by another fox being controlled.
Maintained earths mean that you know where they will be.
I’m not sure some people comprehend the number of foxes in the country
So what’s the point of an artificial or maintained earth if not to encourage foxes into an area and keep them there? Presumably, if they’re vermin you don’t want them around.
Remember the people doing this are mainly inbred hicks with limited intelligence, so don’t expect what they do to make any sense..
Yeh except they aren’t though lol.
So who's up for a pint on the village green on Boxing Day to see the hunt off? Anyone..?
🙂
#tumbleweed
Only thing done wrong in that video is the idiotic dispatch.
If that is genuinely about vermin control, who is he working for? Has a local farmer paid him, is he licenced or regulated, is he running vermin control business? Vermin control is a legitimate, regulated business. How does this fit with that in any way?
None of the above is true of course.
Vermin control can be carried out by anyone, paid or unpaid.
He could be doing that for any number of reasons. That earth could be next to a farm, small holding, market garden , who knows?
What I mean is none of the above is required of course , not that none of it is true.
Wrong choice of word.
Brads, are you seriously suggesting that he (the husband of the Hunt Master) and the grinning girl are there only for legitimate vermin control?
I meet the gamekeeper of the shooting estate local to me quite often. He manages to keep the foxes down without the need of horses or having dogs rip them to shreds. He has a rifle.
I am conflicted there would be no need to shoot them if the pheasants weren't so plentiful as the wouldn't come to chow down on the pheasants but them I get free pheasants when the entitled rich blasters have finished blowing the birds out of the sky purely to kill them and perhaps have a little pheasant stew for lunch alongside plenty of wine and whisky.
That video is of a sick, sad little man. If you think he’s simply providing vermin control then you’re sorely mistaken. Not only for the fact that foxes have never been classed as vermin in a legal sense but, for the fact that the sad shit is clearly getting a kick out of torturing an animal.
That video is of a sick, sad little man.
That's something of a personality trait in the hunting community. I've encountered an awful lot and almost every single one of them was a pathetic bully who was clearly working out their insecurity/inferiority issues on defenceless animals. It's quite a disturbing sight seeing some fat inbred redneck get their kicks from the mutilation of a living thing. F***** scum the lot of them.
As a good example this guy used to be the lead terrier guy for the Cheshire Hunt. I had the pleasure of seeing him try to drown one of my (female) mates in a ditch. It wasn't a surprise when he turned out to be a rapist..
The guy in that video deserves a prison sentence for that
for the fact that the sad shit is clearly getting a kick out of torturing an animal.
That's where the psychopathy bit comes in. Lots of it in the hunting community.
almost every single one of them was a pathetic bully who was clearly working out their insecurity/inferiority issues on defenceless animals. It’s quite a disturbing sight seeing some fat inbred redneck get their kicks from the mutilation of a living thing. F***** scum the lot of them.
This. Very much this. 100%
I have stated that dispatch was idiotic and also illegall
The flushing to a net is not and is standard practice but requires a gun present
If that guy had simply shot that fox then it would have been normal pest control using terriers which is perfectly legal.
If you think he’s simply providing vermin control then you’re sorely mistaken
What was he doing then ? You obviously have knowledge of the situation?
Enlighten us rather than beat around the bush.
What was he doing then ?
Killing foxes illegally.
I’m speculating here, but I suspect he enjoyed it.
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.
He's gone out with a terrier and a net to a fox's den. Penny to a pound, it's not to create an art installation, he's gone to trap a fox.
He hasn't taken a gun to then dispatch it as soon as possible. He's taken a garden fork. He might have taken that to dig the den with but as it plays out it's pretty clear he's taken it for one purpose - to torture it with. You don't need any other knowledge to come to a pretty obvious conclusion.
Trying to pretend it might be something else, you're making yourself look silly more than anything.
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I’m not pretending it was anything. There’s enough speculation on this thread already.
He went to kill a fox , he did it incorrectly and illegally but it was only the dispatch that was wrong.
I’m only pointing out what none of you want to understand.
To me it looked like that dog was in and the fox was out very quickly.
If he’d shot it it would have been fine and all legal and effective.
How clear do I have to make it that I’m defending nothing?
I’ve explains it in simplistic terms so work it out please.
incorrect and illegal doesn't scratch the surface of what he was doing.
He didn't go to kill a fox, he went to catch and torture a fox for his, and I assume the woman's enjoyment. Its death was pretty secondary to the expedition, to be honest.
How clear do I have to make it that I’m defending nothing? Are folk really that thick they can’t read?
I’ve explains it in simplistic terms so work it out please.
You are saying if he did something differently, it would be different.
But that's irrelevant, as he didn't do it another way, he killed it with a garden fork. That's the relevant bit, not some hypothetical whataboutery. I can only guess you want to move the conversation on to what youd view as more acceptable practices. It doesn't appear everyone else is quite there yet.
As I’m sick repeating
You either want experienced knowledge of what was going on or you don’t.
I’m not defending this person in any way shape or form.
not some hypothetical whataboutery.
Yup there is plenty of that on here for sure.
None from me I’ll add
If folk insist I am it’s simply to justify abusing and insulting me for not jumping on the supposition, hate all hunting bandwagon.