Poll: Fox Hunting

Do you support proposed amendments or repeal of the Hunting Act?

  • Yes, I think the Act should be repealed.

    Votes: 106 20.1%

  • Yes, I think E&W should come in line with Scotland.

    Votes: 35 6.6%

  • No, I think the Act should not be altered.

    Votes: 387 73.3%
  • Total voters
    528
ubersonic said:
I personally don't like the idea of using dogs to hunt foxes, however I do realise that something has to be done to get fox numbers back under control.
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Are foxes that much of a menace and are their numbers that out of control? In the past I've used dogs for hunting rat and rabbits, because it's quicker than shooting. A team of dogs can do in an hour what would take a gun all day to do. With large rat infestations, a team of terriers can kill hundreds of rats in a few hours. A job that would take a gun days or weeks to do. And it avoids the use of poison which goes back into the food chain endangering things like birds of prey.

I've never heard of foxes being that much of a menace apart from pinching the odd bit of poultry from a shed or coupe.
 
If the ban was repealed, you'd just get an increase in those crazies who think animal life is worth more/same than human life, who would attack the hunters.
 
McGray said:
Why did you vote to repeal it then?
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For the reasons I said (hence why taking quotes out of context is silly), it should be decided at county level. It's like when I voted for Labour even though I thought Miliband would make a horrific PM, sometimes what we would like and what we know we need are different.

In this case even though I don't like the idea of fox hunting or an outright repeal I do understand that something has to be done to control fox numbers, and I do believe that countryside matters should be a countryside decision, let the locals decide if hunting should be allowed in their area.
 
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Pixel said:
If the ban was repealed, you'd just get an increase in those crazies who think animal life is worth more/same than human life, who would attack the hunters.
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Maybe they could just have one day in the year to go off hunting - a bit like the purge and they themselves would become the hunted by the protestors? Just a thought.
 
When I was young and growing up in Nottinghamshire where my grandparents were farmers I remember the Quorn Hunt coming to the village after their meet.

Then they were mostly farmers, a few landed gentry, but many people rode and the hunt was a social occasion.

My grandfather did have henhouses and was occasionally raided by foxes. He generally shot at them but rarely bagged one as I recall. He also trapped rabbits and hares for the pot, moles if they dug up his garden, and anything which stole his crops.

It was a country way of life and accepted

Now, foxes are probably more numerous around towns and cities as these have spread into the countryside.

I do not particularly like huntspeople, or hunting. It is now a bit too upper middle class and snobby, removed from its origins ie. the need to control foxes and have a day out at the same time.

To my mind it is a far remove fron stag hunting with dogs, which I dislike intensely, foxes can and do often escape, the deer very rarely do and are hunted purely as sport with no other agenda.
 
Fox hunting is absolutely not about pest control - if it were then hunts wouldn't be breeding foxes to hunt.
 
Because the seems to be a lot of revisionist history going around ATM that suggests the ban was popular when it was introduced, I would just like to remind people that the three biggest protest marches of the 21st century have been: The '03 march against going to war with Iraq, then the '02 march against banning hunting, then the '11 march against austerity/cuts, in that order.
 
John40 said:
I hate all hunters with a passion, usually people with severe personality disorders who simply enjoy killing for the fun of it.

Nobody can convince me that killing any animal for fun is a thing a normal person would do.
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yep.
its not about the foxes for me (i couldn't care less about them), its this. It has no room in modern society.
 
scorza said:
Fox hunting is absolutely not about pest control - if it were then hunts wouldn't be breeding foxes to hunt.
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I remember the first time I saw foxes in the wild up close. I'd been hunting rabbit with my dogs and was on the way home through some fields, when something moving in the hedge caught my eye, knelt down and peered in and right back burrowed into the bank was a den with a pair of fox cubs in it. I got up and took the dogs home, then came back with some binoculars. Sat for three hours at the top of the field watching until the mother came back. She must have realised something had been there, because as soon as she arrived back, she was off again with the cubs in tow. Never saw them again. Actually didn't see another fox until I ended up working in a wild life sanctuary. Most of the ones we got in there were the result of road accidents. I've yet to see foxes in the wild again other than road kill.
 
Keep the ban.

There is nothing sporting about brutally chasing down a defenceless animal with dogs and horses. It's an antiquated "sport" and should be consigned to the past once and for all.
 
Repeal it and then enforce a law which bans hunting foxes for sport with dogs. I believe they can currently use two hounds to hunt still and i find this ridiculous.

Fox hunting should really be kept down to just pest control. They should implement a better regulatory system which involves the logging of hunters and number of foxes killed in the area, as well as rules and guidelines on how the hunting should be performed (similar to how there are rules to fishing set by the environment agency), these are things like assigning areas which are more suitable than others for hunting such as areas overpopulated with foxes or areas where rare animal populations are dying out due to foxes. Also implementing a guideline for the shooting itself such as a need for a minimum power of firearm being used with a rough guideline of maximum distance for those people who fancy themselves part time professional snipers. Sounds impossible to implement but you find the people involved in the activity end up policing and reporting wrong doings more than anything else, as well as the land owners of the area where the hunting would take place. Not after long, the rules and guidelines become the general etiquette for the activity whether people treat it as pest control or sport. For example; I do a lot of fishing and many private venues started to implement the use of mats to unhook big fish on, in case the fish injures itself on the ground when it starts flapping during the unhooking process. A few years after these rules came in and you will be hard pressed to find any carp angler without an unhooking mat, regardless of whether he fishes private waters with the rule or not and most carp anglers are very vocal about their displeasure if they see someone without one.
 
ubersonic said:
The ban was undemocratic when introduced because it was mostly unpopular in the countryside (the place where the foxes are) yet popular in the cities (where the are very little foxes) however I think it would be undemocratic to just repeal it.

Maybe a better idea would be to devolve it to country councils, that way it can be banned/legal at the country level which would be a much better system, as it can be illegal in cities and keep the bleeding heart townies happy, and it can be legal in areas where foxes are causing a menace.

I personally don't like the idea of using dogs to hunt foxes, however I do realise that something has to be done to get fox numbers back under control.
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Where foxes are a menace (which is rarely the case) then they can be controlled humanly now as it is, there is absolutely no reason to have a pack of dogs chase an animal for miles and then rip it to shreds.. A farmer can poison or shoot a troublesome fox as it is.



Killing animals for entertainments sake only should remain illegal.
 
Keep the ban.

Sure, Foxes do need controlling, but do it professionally and not allow a bunch of Hooray Henry's to go charging around the countryside blowing their horns and generally acting like they own the place...

I get to see this crowd at certain times of the year while 'on the job', and the sight of all those horses, dogs and fawning hangers on cluttering up the roads really rubs me up the wrong way.
 
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