General Chat

I wont eat in any pubs that support fox hunting :-( :-(

More than once I have enjoyed close encounters with the fox. Three or four winters ago, when a blanket of snow had covered the ground for a week or so, I had paused to watch a flock of finches feeding beneath an oak tree when that rich and unmistakable scent of a dog fox came to my nose on the wind. I stood still and watched and sure enough, before two minutes were past, Renard himself walked into full view. The finches flew to safety and the old fox sniffed where they had been, lifting his head and looking all around.

He could not have failed to see at least my considerable outline but didn’t recognise me as human (hardly surprising, say some of my dubious semi-detached acquaintances!). He sniffed at one of the trees and made off for a gap in the hedge close to where I was standing. I hardly dared to breathe for fear of making a sound.

I had a splendid close-up view of the fox as few ever see him, in his perfection, with a full winter coat rich red in colour, a clean white collar and thick brush of a tail tipped again with white. At the foot of the hedge, he caught my scent and turned quickly with the look of an alarmed animal. We made eye contact for a brief moment and then he was gone faster than Usain Bolt.

I was able to examine the imprint of his tracks, first in the snow and then in soft mud where the difference between the paw-print of a pet dog and a wild fox could easily be seen: The fox print is rather dainty, while that of a dog tends to have more bulk, and the rear pad on the foot of the fox is placed behind the four front toes, while the same pad on a dog’s foot is almost encircled by the four toes.

In addition, a wandering pet dog tends to explore its surroundings and leaves a zigzag trail in its wake, while a fox knows exactly where it wants to go and moves in a straight line. That's how the Romans used to construct their roads - straight on with no meandering. Most foxes leave a pretty strong smell behind them too, giving further indication of their recent passing.

I would expect that any other pack of dogs roaming around; killing other animals would usually be caught & put down
As a child living in the country, we knew that when the hunt was around we had to keep pet cats & dogs safely within our houses.
Before Fox hunting was made illegal we banned them from our land, as did some of the local farmers. The horses churn up foot/cart paths & the hounds scare or kill anything (including pet dogs being walked on the lead).
I well remember a red faced ‘Master’ cursing me as a fox they had been chasing slipped through the outer hedge of our wood & I was there just daring them to allow just one of their drawling pack to step foot on our land.

Edit. Yes Rollo, I have used a shotgun... Never killed anything, but them pesky pigeons think twice about eating the growing tips out of me cabbages.

I'm being slightly mischievous but the fact that we eat what we kill suggests human arrogance. Personally I hate to see thousands of fish being left to suffocate.

Not a bible thumper but the good book does say 'thou shalt not kill'. Note the full stop.
If animals and creatures have a Satan, it will be in human form.

Happy days

Poaching and fishing directly puts food on the table.

Although in the distant past Foxes may have been considered a valuable food source, it's not something widly publicised.

Huntsmen will say that hunting with hounds encourages survival of the fittest. On the other hand, if their dens had been blocked up, it altered the odds.

I see little difference between fox hunting ; poaching for rabbits etc; and fishing.

Happy days

Can some not see, or accept, that a wild fox being chased until its lungs give out & exhaustion delivers it to a pack of hounds to be eviscerated is 'welfare compromised'?

And could this euphemism not also be applied to a hare that is terrorised, mauled & tossed about by dogs like a paper toy for the amusement of a crowd of gamblers & macabre sightseers?

The welfare of a fox or fox cub that is dragged from its underground refuge with the aid of spades, terriers & poles wrapped with barbed wire is certainly compromised, whatever about claims that the hunt 'dig-out' is part of a proud rural tradition.

700 hours of parliamentary time debating fox-hunting, seven hours of parliamentary time debating whether to invade Iraq!. That says all you need to know about nice Mr. Blair's government. By the way, I have a stuffed fox curled up in front of the fire, and no, I didn't kill it myself, I inherited it from someone who ran it over and couldn't bear to leave it beside the road for the crows. Bob

"No, it is the site of a couple of dozen "toffs" wearing expensive boots sitting on expensive hunters which so irks many."

Rubbish. That's the excuse regularly trotted out by the likes of The Mail ! I am surprised at you Rollo...I thought you had more about you than to fall for that guff.

"Hunting during the winter is a fairly efficient method of fox control. A typical hunt will run down a fox within 30 minutes and four or five will be dispatched during a hunt. Pre-Act this was quite efficient enough to control numbers without in any way endangering the fox as a species. "

Absolute piffle.

I'm a country girl who (I'm ashamed to say) used to hunt. And that isn't how it was.

People posting on here, on the whole, aren't gamekeepers, and thankfully, in this country the majority of people neither want to own, nor use a gun.
Some of the gamekeeping students are indeed children of gamekeepers, though not all, but the whole aspect of gamekeeping has changed in the past 20-30 years.

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2005/mar/01/furthereducation.uk4

I did say at the end of my post that the most common way of getting rid of foxes is to trap them in a humane trap, then shoot them - you can't miss!

Pheasants are bred to be shot. Besides which, they aren't a native species. Their sole raison d'etre is to be shot.

Many more people follow the non-destructive 'hunts' than did the 'killing' hunts, and the hunts are actually better off, financially, now.

There have always been grockles in the New Forest, and the influx of cyclists is indeed a pest - but not hunt-related, yet.

Bear baiting and dog fighting used to be legal, perhaps they shouldn't have been banned I'm sure this was deemed a 'bad' law at the time - after all, isn't every social class entitled to their 'fun'?

To many farmers, the red fox is craftiness & cunning personified. He is a stealer of little innocent lambs; a mass killer of fowl, a vagabond rogue & a thief. He also has a nasty habit of upending tidy rubbish bins in towns at the dead of night & shredding the plastic bags found inside, searching for any leftover food scraps. He accepts each gift with grasping enthusiasm.

But, according to some natural history programmes on TV, there is more to the fox than that. His amber eye is intelligent, his face keen, sense of smell acute & hearing highly tuned although his sight lets him down on occasions.

Has anybody posting their remedies here for fox control actually used a rifle or shotgun ? 9-5 college lecturers are all very well. See if you can find a gamekeeper who will agree that it is easy to shoot a fox. At a guess most people posting here could not hit a barn door at five yards.

The concept of a college trained gamekeeper is interesting. Some of my rellies employ gamekeepers. Most of them learned their trade from their fathers, not college.

It is next to impossible to shoot a fox with a clean kill especially with a shot gun. Shooting and wounding leaving the fox to die in great pain is both illegal and far more painful then having his neck bitten through by a hound.

Trapping and poisoning are illegal but spreading as cheap, needs little skill and no fire arms.Big downside for other wild animals, cats and sometimes dogs. Pheasant/partridge game keepers most likely suspects.

The legal method - trapping the fox in his lair (often an old badger sett) and digging him out with the aid of terriers takes ages and in today's world is wildly uneconomic. Nobody has hours let alone days to deal with too many foxes. Farmers may go for this method during the winter if they have time and the foxes are getting above themselves. The sabs. believe flushing out foxes with terriers and shooting them is "field sports".

Farmers & landowners have never set out to eradicate the fox. One good reason is that it is next to impossible to defeat an animal which is highly intelligent and powerful yet small enough to hide. The other is that foxes control other pests especially rabbits. So the idea has always been to control numbers not extermination. The exception of course are pheasant gamekeepers some of whom would exterminate pretty well anything.

Hunting during the winter is a fairly efficient method of fox control. A typical hunt will run down a fox within 30 minutes and four or five will be dispatched during a hunt. Pre-Act this was quite efficient enough to control numbers without in any way endangering the fox as a species.

Given the savagery and inhumane practices which go on so as to produce cheap roasting hens, cheap pork products and so on without very little agnst evidenced by shoppers I rather doubt that feelings for Freddy Fox drive animosity to fox hunting.

No, it is the site of a couple of dozen "toffs" wearing expensive boots sitting on expensive hunters which so irks many. In fact if you can ride properly it is not so hard to get an invite without spending thousands.

Many perfectly ordinary people follow on foot and still do so today - it is a good day out in the fresh winter air. Much better than other pests of the New Forest such as hordes of lycra clad cyclists and grockles with their 4WDs chewing up the bridlepaths.

It is a maxim of the law that law should (a) be enforcable and (b) agreed to by most of the people directly affected. Neither is true of the current Hunting With Dogs Act. What has happened is that the police are using the Act for other crimes and the RSPCA has largely stopped its activity under threat of losing its charitable status. There has been a steep rise in illegal control methods.

Bad law will have to be changed at some point whoever is in power.

But what should we make of the fox?

There are many who would kill him on sight. Fox hunting in the UK was banned in 2004, ending dark days of senseless savagery - a cruel sport indeed.

Poisonous substances are plentiful & opportunities to use them equally so. Strychnine was once the poison of choice; now that this is no longer easily purchased other products, including livestock medicines, are used as alternatives.

Why? The traditional view of the fox as an enemy of the shepherd & the poultryman would appear to be the main reason.

Finally, a bit of trivia for you. A fox that was shot dead on an Aberdeenshire farm after it was seen attacking lambs, weighed 38 lbs & was 4ft 9ins in length.

Enough of this 'Foxy Knoxy' stuff!

I think the sabateurs could be extremely nasty if this happens.

Agreed foxes are a pest but hunting is a very stupid way of trying to kill them. There are a lot better methods. Some hunts used to breed them so they had something to hunt, which shows how efficient hunting isn't.

I don't want the country I live in to tolerate people getting pleasure from torturing animals.

Simples.

I am not a fan either way, but neither do i want any more of my hard earned tax wasted on this.

The current legislation cost millions to force though parliament - something like 700 hours of wasted parliamentary time - and is to all intents and purposes largely ineffective with less than ten percent of prosecutions brought actually relating to hunting with dogs, the very people it was intended to target.

The Hunting Act was poorly thought through, illogical and undemocratic piece of legislation that is not working. Even Blair who was responsible for introducing it later admitted it was a mistake.

To waste even more time and money is pointless when there are far more important issues for parliament to deal with.

Not if you're good enough!
You need to know where their den is, and stake it out.
In 2 days, me and my friend had the opportunity to kill 2, possibly 3 foxes at close range, had we both been armed and of that ilk, and this was with no planning!

This time of year, the males are lurking around waiting for a mate.
Set up a 'feeding station' now, and they're like moths around a light.
Of course, you'd have to move where you feed them, but still more efficient than chasing them around for hours, causing untold distress.

Having said that, most gamekeepers catch foxes in humane traps, then dispatch them.

Maggie it isn't hard to shoot a fox as your gamekeeper friend/acquaintance says...what is hard is to kill a fox with a single shot even with a rifle.

I am not pro fox hunting.

Lesley x

Thanks Rose :-)