There is of evidence that hunts have continued despite the ban, and a lot of the people involved believe they are above the law anyhow.
******* toffs. I don't hate people with money, but I hate toffs.
Poll: Fox Hunting
- Thread starter Burnsy2023
- Start date
There is of evidence that hunts have continued despite the ban, and a lot of the people involved believe they are above the law anyhow.
******* toffs. I don't hate people with money, but I hate toffs.
Soldato
- Joined
- 23 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 13,598
I am in favour on hunting Fox (Liam) with dogs. 
Man of Honour
- Joined
- 12 Jul 2005
- Posts
- 21,547
- Location
- Aberlour, NE Scotland
I really hope it doesn't get repealed. I hate these people. Bunch of rich ***** that go out with their dogs and thinks it's fun to have the dogs tear the terrified animal apart. Turn the dogs on them and see how much they like being torn to pieces!! ******* barbarians!!!!
Can I something to those who hunt. Those that do this for food. Why do you hunt? It can't be lack of food as you can buy loads from a shop. So why are you prepared to split a family of say rabbits, when you can readily buy meat in the shop? Just a wondering question.
Various sources are reporting that it won't be a free vote after a debate.
http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2015/07/08/david-cameron-to-sneak-through-partial-foxhunting-repeal
I'm not sufficiently clued up on what this means, but apparently the way Cameron is doing this will allow them to relax the law on hunting *without* a full free vote/ debate?
http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2015/07/08/david-cameron-to-sneak-through-partial-foxhunting-repeal
I'm not sufficiently clued up on what this means, but apparently the way Cameron is doing this will allow them to relax the law on hunting *without* a full free vote/ debate?
Soldato
- Joined
- 27 Apr 2013
- Posts
- 4,095
Why does it matter that one is for food and one is for entertainment? We don't need to eat meat in the 21st century, we do so because we enjoy it. Necessity is not a factor.
Hunting sustainable populations of animals is, in my view, an entirely valid pastime. It gives a far stronger connection to the natural world than hugging trees does.
Foxes don't need to be mauled by dogs trained to do so, regardless of conservation controls.
Soldato
- Joined
- 12 Sep 2012
- Posts
- 11,698
- Location
- Surrey
Rabbit is a tasty meat which is expensive from a butcher for what it is and many parts of Britain have an overpopulation of rabbit. I have also shot and eaten wood pigeon.
I fully support hunting for food or for population control. I dont agree with hunting for sport but i can see the appeal, as i fish for sport, so people can hunt all they want, as long as it isn't done in a stupid way, like with hunting dogs...
Soldato
- Joined
- 27 Apr 2013
- Posts
- 4,095
What a load of cobblers!!
What a well reasoned counterpoint.
I used to hunt rabbits and rats, simply as pests. Rabbits can decimate crops so their numbers need to be controlled. Any rabbits got, depending if they had mixy or not, were for the pot, or fed to the dogs. Myxomatosis was actually used as a method to control rabbit populations. Infected rabbits where let loose into burrows so to infect the others. It's a pretty horrible way to die.
Also reading out rabbits helps out the farmers. Growing up in Northern Ireland, outside of Belfast or the big towns, you can't throw a rock without hitting a farmer (most of my mates in school were farmers sons and that's how I got into it). Dogs, particularly whippets, are great for this. I had three and we could get two or three rabbit just in open field before the rest disappeared down their holes. Any that disappear down holes get smoked out into nets, were you break their necks with your bare hands. If a rabbit appears out of a hole we haven't noticed, or gets under a net, the dogs can take care of it. My uncle kept ferrets for sending down holes rather than using a smoker, mostly because he didn't like having to tramp through fields carrying a smoker.
Rabbits can be shot, but once that first crack of a shot goes off, they're away for cover and down their holes, so you have to resort to the smoking / ferret method. And despite what COD players in the city might think, trying to hit a rabbit going at full pelt with a .22 is not an easy job. Lamping makes mass shooting of rabbits much easier, but then you have to find a team who're willing to get up in the night to trudge about fields. It's still not as effective as the dogs and smoke / net method.
I've been ratting, though never had ratting dogs as my own. My job was to stir up nests. That involves building a barricade around the area we're going into so the rats can't escape, overturning rubbish and farm equipment that they'll hide in or nest in, digging up earth around rat holes to dig them out and put the smoker down. Or going into grain / crop stores and turning those over. A good team of ratters and dogs can kill hundreds of rats in a few hours depending on the size of the infestation. The same job would take someone sitting with a rifle or shotgun days or weeks to do since the rats hear the shot and they all disappears down the holes. Again, this is to protect feed, grain and crop stores.
The other option is poison. But poison runs the risk of being reintroduced into the food chain. Particularly scavenging animals such as foxes and birds, or with birds of prey.
This is the same, backwards viewpoint that big game hunters used in India, Africa, the US, etc. Hunting buffalo to near extinction (often shooting them from passing trains and leaving them to rot), tigers to the verge of extinction in India (indeed several sub species are extinct). What great sport!
Do you not feel you could connect with nature *without* shooting something, or mauling it to death with a pack of dogs trained for that purpose?
I seem to be able to connect with nature just fine by going for a walk in the countryside. The shedding of blood doesn't seem to be an essential part of the process.
Not only carrying on hunting but breeding foxes for hunting which somewhat makes their claim of being pest controllers outright lies.
As someone who lives in the countryside but am not a fox hunter I'd go amend out of the three options.
I have no issue with killing animals to keep numbers down, fox hunting was always 'meant to be' a cull on foxes due to them going after livestock etc and having no natural predators in the UK (used to be the wolf, which we hunted to extinction here). What I have an issue with is the way it's done, it does not take around 100 hounds and horses to hunt a single fox.
If the cull was done in a humane way I think there would be less outcry from animal lovers. Funnily enough you never hear them complaining about killing rats and in my view they're far worse to have around than foxes...
It's the same situation with other animals, pigeons in cities, rabbits at every roundabout (well they are out here lol), even crows could all do with 'regular' culling due to them not having any natural means of keeping numbers down.
And as mentioned above, I've eaten pretty much every type of animal that is hunted on land and can be eaten (rabbit, hare, wood pigeon, pheasant etc) but they've ALL been killed quickly and efficiently as possible, not with the number of hounds that fox hunting 'needs'.
As to comparing with fishing, unless you slinging in an explosive to kill all the fish you can't really compare fishing on a hook to fox hunting in my view, a fish can get away from a single hook, a fox very rarely has a chance against a pack of dogs.
I have no issue with killing animals to keep numbers down, fox hunting was always 'meant to be' a cull on foxes due to them going after livestock etc and having no natural predators in the UK (used to be the wolf, which we hunted to extinction here). What I have an issue with is the way it's done, it does not take around 100 hounds and horses to hunt a single fox.
If the cull was done in a humane way I think there would be less outcry from animal lovers. Funnily enough you never hear them complaining about killing rats and in my view they're far worse to have around than foxes...
It's the same situation with other animals, pigeons in cities, rabbits at every roundabout (well they are out here lol), even crows could all do with 'regular' culling due to them not having any natural means of keeping numbers down.
And as mentioned above, I've eaten pretty much every type of animal that is hunted on land and can be eaten (rabbit, hare, wood pigeon, pheasant etc) but they've ALL been killed quickly and efficiently as possible, not with the number of hounds that fox hunting 'needs'.
As to comparing with fishing, unless you slinging in an explosive to kill all the fish you can't really compare fishing on a hook to fox hunting in my view, a fish can get away from a single hook, a fox very rarely has a chance against a pack of dogs.
Last edited:
I don't even agree with fox hunting as a pest argument. As I mentioned in an earlier post, in all my years out hunting, I've only come across one fox and cubs and that was 15/16 years ago. I've seen more foxes as road kill near towns than in the wild. And as someone else mentioned in another post, when they're rearing foxes in farms near hunt lodges, it begs the question "are they really that prolific and that much of a pest, that you need to breed them as quarry?".
And I don't think crows fall under protected status, so can be shot whenever as they're also considered a pest. Whereas you can only shoot "game" birds within their season.
Last edited: