General Chat

I have ridden to hounds since about the age of six, harriers not fox, foxhounds were run on foot in The Lakes...

Also, I enjoyed point to point racing, for a horse to be eligible it has to qualify by hunting a minimum of four times in a season...this can be done with draghounds....

As the daughter of a farmer and country lover/dweller, I would welcome the return to hunting live quarry, it's been part of the English countryside for generations....

Mistyx

My view is - you go fishing, you catch a fish, you kill it, you take it home and eat it!!
(apart from the fish I caught, as a child, in Mevagissey when I was crabbing - it was just a small body, tail fins and a huge mouth full of at least 2 layers of enormous sharp teeth!!)
This Is the nearest to what it looked like:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_8880000/newsid_8880700/8880785.stm

I know it should be deep down, but it was in the harbour!! :-0

Fox hunting is deemed by many to be a part of English life.

Years ago I covered the hunt protests for a national newspaper and was disgusted by the behaviour, violence, arrogance and antagonism of the "trouble baiting" protesters. They were more animals than the foxes themselves.

I may not agree with some of the more cruel aspects but I do agree with keeping vermin down, just as I agree with a badger cull in principle.

I agree Magpie, coarse fishing is also cruel and should be discontinued.

Unfortunately if there isn't enough support to get fox hunting banned once and for all, then there is little chance of banning sports that involve cruelty to non-mammals.

Regarding landed gentry, that is irrelevant. Fox hunting should be banned whoever is doing it.

I haven't seen anyone wearing a fox fur coat lately. Is that progress?

No comments about coarse fishing I notice!! Why aren't I surprised!! Horrible cruelty for those poor fish purely in the name is sport. Who caught the biggest etc! I think this hullabaloo about fox hunting has much more to do with the absurd dislike for people who partake, (not all of them are wealthy, and what a quaint old fashioned word gentry is!!) and far less concern for the fox than we are lead to believe, or is it a case of selective cruelty?!!

‘Organised dog fighting is believed to be on the increase among some young British Asians. Dog fighting is a long-established tradition in parts of Pakistan but here in the UK, it is being linked to other violent criminality - with drug money being used to wage bets on the outcome of the fight‘.

(Excerpt from ‘The Report’ - BBC Radio 4 - Broadcast: 30th July 2009).

Sorry but my view of "gentry" gathering with the sole purpose of hunting down an animal and giving it trauma as it tries to escape baying hounds and stupid people on horseback isnt my idea of humane actions

The awful thing of first blooding too is barbaric .

OK the fox may need to be culled but not by sport for the wealthy .

Yes the fox kills but its it natural instinct is for survival .If we have taken over its natural habitat so it crosses our path its the fault of us not the fox

I think you'll find that hare coursing is banned and totally illegal, obviously illicit hare coursing goes on, and any filming of illegal coursing is very dangerous as people who perpetrate this vile occupation are often criminals and can be very threatening and dangerous. It is however still legal in Eire.

Animals everywhere have little or no rights & the sentences handed out to those who abuse them rarely deter further maltreatment.

And if you try to film a coursing event, you'll soon find yourself being circled by the guardians of this 'sport' & promptly ejected from the venue.

I wonder why there isn't the same attitude towards fishing especially coarse fishing?! an equally cruel 'sport!' but of no perceivable concern by the league or anyone else!!
Killing animals for food is ok?!!! presumably the manner of their lives and death is ok too?!! I can only suppose that commercial reasons over-ride cruelty issues in the case of animals for consumption, of which there are many, which of course makes it all alright, blind eye and all.that!!! To be so concerned about one cruelty to the point of moral hysteria, and seemingly oblivious or even condoning others by association is to me completely hypocritical.

Unusual surnames occasionally fascinate me & I try to determine how they came about.

In my junior school of the 1950s, (a long time ago!), we had a Miss Fox as a teacher, generally known amongst us in the rough & tumble of the playground as Maise Fox. I'm still working on the source of her surname. A great lady & a smashing educator. :-D

It seems ludicrous to suggest that hunting is an efficient way of controlling the fox population.

In 2000 it was reckoned that people killed between 190,000 and 340,000 foxed per year. Of those between 18,000 and 22,000 were killed by hunts.

There were about 200 hunts so they average about 110 kills per hunt per year. To account for the number killed by snares and shooting (100,000-200,000) would require 5 to ten times the number of hunts.

Just think of all the extra horses and dogs needed, let alone the manpower.

I wont eat at a pub that supports fox hunting
much to the annoyance of some of my friends :-D :-D

I'll say this very quietly.
Hunts are actually making more money now they don't hunt foxes.
More people turn out to watch the 'chase' now they don't have the fear of a fox being torn to pieces. They are asked to donate towards the upkeep of the dogs, and hunts are doing very well, thank you :-D

99% of anti-hunt people just don't like the cruelty involved. They seem to accept the odd Hooray Henry on his horse - they're part of the British eccentricity :-D (well those I know, anyway - I'd hate to say I/they speak for everyone)

Can the PM not see, or accept, that a wild fox being chased until its lungs give out and 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 and tossed about by dogs like a paper toy for the amusement of a crowd of gamblers and sightseers?

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

I accept that sometimes wild animals have to be culled, but chasing them with hounds and then watching them being torn apart is horrific in my eyes..
No living creature deserves to be hounded for pleasure and die in agony just to please some upper class morons.

I read a very interesting article years ago, written by a shepherd in Cumbria.
He stayed out overnight with the sheep, and watched the foxes.
He caught one eating a lamb - the lamb was already dead.
He studied the foxes that haunted chicken coops - and noticed they tended to be females with cubs - and the male had been killed.
The female would kill as many chickens as possible, and if they were left, she would come back the next day and take a few back to her cubs. This would carry on until al the chickens were eaten. They weren't killed for 'nothing'.
It went on in the same vein, very elucidating.
His general view was that the fox wasn't such a sly animal. It was merely surviving. I tend to take that view too.

At the time I was living in the middle of nowhere, foxes all around, a rudimentary duck run/shelter, ducks loose in the garden all day, and a female who regularly disappeared into the woods to hatch her eggs, then came waddling back with a little troupe. We never lost one duck to the 4 legged fox.

When we moved into the village, It was weird. The ducks were never loose in the garden, the run was much more secure, but we started losing ducks - but strangely, never Cassidy, (Hop-along :-D) the duck with a deformed leg (and therefore easiest to catch)
Then we caught the culprit! He had 2 legs and was called Barry :-|

He didn't want Cassidy, 'cos she didn't have much meat on her withered leg.

I think fox hunting is evil
I have no problem people killing animals to eat

but to me this is cruel murder :-( :-(

no living creature should be killed for pleasure - people who are cruel to animals are also cruel to humans - well known fact