Bring Back Fox Hunting

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

I think most people were completely indifferent to it actually, much as they are now.

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More foxes are killed now than ever before, difference is though it's done by rifle or giant bird.

I don't think people objected to the need to control foxes ,just the way it was done .A more inefficient way to control a pest i have yet to find ,as already stated ,it's a way that ensures only the strongest and fittest foxes survive and go on to breed ,not sure the farmers really want that do they .

[danielf]

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

I think most people were completely indifferent to it actually, much as they are now.

That's not my perception.

More foxes are killed now than ever before, difference is though it's done by rifle or giant bird.

I think that's a lot more palatable to a lot of people. This was never about being allowed to get rid of pests. It's about the way it's done.

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by martyh

I don't think people objected to the need to control foxes ,just the way it was done .A more inefficient way to control a pest i have yet to find ,as already stated ,it's a way that ensures only the strongest and fittest foxes survive and go on to breed ,not sure the farmers really want that do they .

Interesting so now it's not because no foxes are being killed after all, I think quite a few farmers couldn't give a toss about foxes but are concerned about the cash the hunts pay them and referring to your previous post I seem to recall the rspca promising to take in and home all the horses and hounds when they were made redundant knowing full well they couldn't find homes for the healthy animals they already had and put them down, they were the only people that lied as no one could predict the future, they made guarantees they knew they couldn't fulfil.

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Originally Posted by danielf

That's not my perception.



I think that's a lot more palatable to a lot of people. This was never about being allowed to get rid of pests. It's about the way it's done.

How many people know how it's done and how many assume they know how it's done

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

Interesting so now it's not because no foxes are being killed after all, I think quite a few farmers couldn't give a toss about foxes but are concerned about the cash the hunts pay them and referring to your previous post I seem to recall the rspca promising to take in and home all the horses and hounds when they were made redundant knowing full well they couldn't find homes for the healthy animals they already had and put them down, they were the only people that lied as no one could predict the future, they made guarantees they knew they couldn't fulfil.

The argument against fox hunting has always been about the way it was done, for the majority at least .I don't doubt there was an element that want no foxes killed at all but the sensible majority know they are a pest with no natural predators and you may be right about the farmers ,would a farmer really wait for hunt weekend to kill a fox that just got into his chickens or would he get his 12 bore out and do the job straight away

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by martyh

The argument against fox hunting has always been about the way it was done, for the majority at least .I don't doubt there was an element that want no foxes killed at all but the sensible majority know they are a pest with no natural predators and you may be right about the farmers ,would a farmer really wait for hunt weekend to kill a fox that just got into his chickens or would he get his 12 bore out and do the job straight away

Interesting choice for the fox really, a slow lingering death full of pellets, gnaw your own foot of caught on a snare or poison, none of them are particularly nice but hunting is banned, I don't know for certain how hunting works or how a fox is killed but I do know for certain I'm not swayed by the emotive language of certain groups and individuals, is the fox ripped to bits alive or is it killed by a single dog and then torn up after death as is claimed by the hunt masters and if so how is that worse than it's natural predators the eagle owl and golden eagle swooping straight through them as happens on hunts now.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

Interesting choice for the fox really, a slow lingering death full of pellets, gnaw your own foot of caught on a snare or poison, none of them are particularly nice but hunting is banned, I don't know for certain how hunting works or how a fox is killed but I do know for certain I'm not swayed by the emotive language of certain groups and individuals, is the fox ripped to bits alive or is it killed by a single dog and then torn up after death as is claimed by the hunt masters and if so how is that worse than it's natural predators the eagle owl and golden eagle swooping straight through them as happens on hunts now.

Of those sporting events i attended as a saboteur i saw both. I also watched the spectacle of the event and how young children were encouraged to watch and get involved even at the kill if it was possible. My choice of the words used in the thread still stands because the way these people act at the kill is not human, screaming and laughing at the death of an animal is sub human.

If I was still fit enough I would still be attending these events to try my best to stop them. However it is for fitter and younger persons than me to get involved these days due to the way the defenders of the sport use violence the like you see at some football matches

If you are that interested in seeing what happens at the kill go look for the videos on Google and watch how low some so called humans can go.

Your commitment to your belief is highly commendable, however your repeated claims that the behaviour of those involved in the hunt is "sub human" or "Neanderthal" are not ones that I believe are shared by most people. I suspect most people are indifferent one way or the other.

[PISCES]

Yes big star that is exactly the reason fox hunting was banned in the first place it is about the way it is done the cruelty inflicted upon the hunted fox is terrible i know what i am about to say here is nothing to do with fox killing but again it is the same with seals, how any human being can kill a seal is also beyond me people like fox hunters and seal hunters etc make me sick!!!!!!!!!

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Just saying how i feel, and my view is this.......it is wrong to bring fox hunting back again that is my personal view

Originally Posted by PISCES

Yes big star that is exactly the reason fox hunting was banned in the first place it is about the way it is done the cruelty inflicted upon the hunted fox is terrible i know what i am about to say here is nothing to do with fox killing but again it is the same with seals, how any human being can kill a seal is also beyond me people like fox hunters and seal hunters etc make me sick!!!!!!!!!

---------- Post added at 08:39 ---------- Previous post was at 08:33 ----------

Just saying how i feel, and my view is this.......it is wrong to bring fox hunting back again that is my personal view

I agree with you bunch of blood thirsty toffs

If there is a problem let the farmer/landowner deal with

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Originally Posted by Sirius

Of those sporting events i attended as a saboteur i saw both. I also watched the spectacle of the event and how young children were encouraged to watch and get involved even at the kill if it was possible. My choice of the words used in the thread still stands because the way these people act at the kill is not human, screaming and laughing at the death of an animal is sub human.

If I was still fit enough I would still be attending these events to try my best to stop them. However it is for fitter and younger persons than me to get involved these days due to the way the defenders of the sport use violence the like you see at some football matches

If you are that interested in seeing what happens at the kill go look for the videos on Google and watch how low some so called humans can go.

---------- Post added at 09:18 ---------- Previous post was at 09:15 ----------

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

Interesting choice for the fox really, a slow lingering death full of pellets, gnaw your own foot of caught on a snare or poison, none of them are particularly nice but hunting is banned, I don't know for certain how hunting works or how a fox is killed but I do know for certain I'm not swayed by the emotive language of certain groups and individuals, is the fox ripped to bits alive or is it killed by a single dog and then torn up after death as is claimed by the hunt masters and if so how is that worse than it's natural predators the eagle owl and golden eagle swooping straight through them as happens on hunts now.

foxes can easily be deterred by electric fences but these cost money. None of the urban foxes get close to my chickens because I have taken precautions in their surroundings

Originally Posted by danielf

Slavery is different, but not that different. More people object to unnecessary cruelty against animals than a couple of years ago. This has resulted in legislation again cruelty to animals. The point of the analogy with slavery was that, at the time, to many people, slaves were just short of non-human.

Perceptions change, and your arguments against the fox hunting ban can easily be transposed to slavery. At the time, trading and keeping slaves, was a widely followed practice that suddenly became illegal, because some people didn't like what others were doing. In hindsight, there's little that's Draconian about that.

And I'm not conflating anything thank you. Any form of government is going to be a trade-off between what's considered acceptable and people's liberties. As it happens, animal rights have come to the fore in recent years, and this means that unnecessary cruelty against animals is frowned upon. Just like smoking in the Pub, where others are affected (unless it's the HoP Pub, but that's another matter).

The fatal flaw in the slavers' argument was of course that the slaves actually were human. They lost the argument on their own terms, once it was widely understood that human slaves were being treated with less dignity than their humanity demanded.

The question now is whether the treatment of a hunted fox is less than that demanded by its status as a fox. Leaving aside the fact that animals have no status in law - our laws being framed in terms of what people can and cannot do to animals, rather than what "rights" animals have - I would argue that a fox being hunted down by a pack of dogs, even being "torn to pieces" by that pack, is receiving no different treatment than it could have expected in the wild, had humans themselves not removed the apex predators such as wolves and eagle owls (though these are, I believe, beginning to make a comeback).

I have no doubt that the fox is distressed by the hunt. I have no doubt that its death is painful. However it is suffering nothing that is not routinely suffered by all wildlife, everywhere, every day. The argument that it is cruel does not stand up. Life is cruel. Death is cruel. You can't legislate against that.

What we're actually left with is people projecting their own feelings on to animals - a phenomenon pretty much confined to the cosseted, urbanised, Disneyfied Western world, where animals dress up in waistcoats to sing and dance for our entertainment, and meat is a mysterious pink substance that magically appears in shrink wrap on supermarket shelves - and arbitrary morality such as that articulated by Damien earlier: it's wrong because "it just is". All of which is fine as far as it goes. But to then legislate for that is as illiberal as legislating that everyone must be in church on Sunday morning.

And it's nothing at all like the smoking ban, which isn't a ban at all - simply a restriction on where you can smoke, enacted not for the benefit of the smoker but as a health and safety measure intended to protect those who work in public spaces and therefore don't have the choice to avoid passive inhalation.

Originally Posted by Chris

What we're actually left with is people projecting their own feelings on to animals - a phenomenon pretty much confined to the cosseted, urbanised, Disneyfied Western world, where animals dress up in waistcoats to sing and dance for our entertainment, and meat is a mysterious pink substance that magically appears in shrink wrap on supermarket shelves - and arbitrary morality such as that articulated by Damien earlier: it's wrong because "it just is". All of which is fine as far as it goes. But to then legislate for that is as illiberal as legislating that everyone must be in church on Sunday morning.

Hang on. It's not that arbitrary . We're not simply projecting our feelings onto animals. We've feeling empathy for them, they're living creatures and we can relate to feelings of suffering that they may feel. Surely it's borderline psychopathic if we didn't feel such empathy for them. I also think it's rather patronising, albeit quite funny, to suggest that this phenomenon is confined to a Disneyfied view of the world where they sing and dance for us.

I admit there is a degree of hypocrisy to the fact I am not a vegetarian which I mostly get away with because the killing is abstracted away from me but also because I try not to buy products where the animal suffers and because I view the use of some animals for food as ethical different to killing them for sport.

Anyway unlike four years ago I probably wouldn't oppose this ban being lifted. Not because I think fox hunting is a good thing but because I dislike the idea of the Government passing laws and criminalising people unless there is a really good reason to so. My own view of the ethicality of Fox Hunting is certainly not a good enough reason.

However we've had this discussion before haven't we? I am surprised you're arguing about arbitrary morality and illiberal legislation because I think that we were on opposite sides of this debate when it came to Gay Marriage. Unless I misunderstood your position (which is possible) you were against the legalisation of it because of your own moral code whereas I was both for it in terms of morality but also believed that it wasn't the Governments place to enforce your/their morality on other people. What's the difference between the Government enforcing someone's moral view of Fox Hunting and the Government enforcing someone else's moral view of Marriage? Surely you already accept there is a such a thing as morality derived from a 'higher power'. Be it God or empathy for animals.

[danielf]

Originally Posted by Chris

The fatal flaw in the slavers' argument was of course that the slaves actually were human. They lost the argument on their own terms, once it was widely understood that human slaves were being treated with less dignity than their humanity demanded.

The question now is whether the treatment of a hunted fox is less than that demanded by its status as a fox. Leaving aside the fact that animals have no status in law - our laws being framed in terms of what people can and cannot do to animals, rather than what "rights" animals have - I would argue that a fox being hunted down by a pack of dogs, even being "torn to pieces" by that pack, is receiving no different treatment than it could have expected in the wild, had humans themselves not removed the apex predators such as wolves and eagle owls (though these are, I believe, beginning to make a comeback).

I have no doubt that the fox is distressed by the hunt. I have no doubt that its death is painful. However it is suffering nothing that is not routinely suffered by all wildlife, everywhere, every day. The argument that it is cruel does not stand up. Life is cruel. Death is cruel. You can't legislate against that.

What we're actually left with is people projecting their own feelings on to animals - a phenomenon pretty much confined to the cosseted, urbanised, Disneyfied Western world, where animals dress up in waistcoats to sing and dance for our entertainment, and meat is a mysterious pink substance that magically appears in shrink wrap on supermarket shelves - and arbitrary morality such as that articulated by Damien earlier: it's wrong because "it just is". All of which is fine as far as it goes. But to then legislate for that is as illiberal as legislating that everyone must be in church on Sunday morning.

And it's nothing at all like the smoking ban, which isn't a ban at all - simply a restriction on where you can smoke, enacted not for the benefit of the smoker but as a health and safety measure intended to protect those who work in public spaces and therefore don't have the choice to avoid passive inhalation.

You may well argue that, but many would say that you're arguing from an archaic position. It simply is no longer the case that we judge the way we treat animals by the way they are treated in nature. These days, we recognise that animals deserve to be treated with a certain amount of respect, and should be spared unnecessary suffering. That, rightly or wrongly, is the background of the ban on fox hunting. By and large, society has decided that animals deserve respect. That's democracy doing its job, not democracy misfiring.

Originally Posted by danielf

I think that's a lot more palatable to a lot of people. This was never about being allowed to get rid of pests. It's about the way it's done.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Chris

The fatal flaw in the slavers' argument was of course that the slaves actually were human. They lost the argument on their own terms, once it was widely understood that human slaves were being treated with less dignity than their humanity demanded.

The question now is whether the treatment of a hunted fox is less than that demanded by its status as a fox. Leaving aside the fact that animals have no status in law - our laws being framed in terms of what people can and cannot do to animals, rather than what "rights" animals have - I would argue that a fox being hunted down by a pack of dogs, even being "torn to pieces" by that pack, is receiving no different treatment than it could have expected in the wild, had humans themselves not removed the apex predators such as wolves and eagle owls (though these are, I believe, beginning to make a comeback).

I have no doubt that the fox is distressed by the hunt. I have no doubt that its death is painful. However it is suffering nothing that is not routinely suffered by all wildlife, everywhere, every day. The argument that it is cruel does not stand up. Life is cruel. Death is cruel. You can't legislate against that.

What we're actually left with is people projecting their own feelings on to animals - a phenomenon pretty much confined to the cosseted, urbanised, Disneyfied Western world, where animals dress up in waistcoats to sing and dance for our entertainment, and meat is a mysterious pink substance that magically appears in shrink wrap on supermarket shelves - and arbitrary morality such as that articulated by Damien earlier: it's wrong because "it just is". All of which is fine as far as it goes. But to then legislate for that is as illiberal as legislating that everyone must be in church on Sunday morning.

And it's nothing at all like the smoking ban, which isn't a ban at all - simply a restriction on where you can smoke, enacted not for the benefit of the smoker but as a health and safety measure intended to protect those who work in public spaces and therefore don't have the choice to avoid passive inhalation.

If the fox has to be culled then fine, do it with a gun not by dogs so that the people watching can

A. look on it as a sport.

B. Get some perverse pleasure from the act.

Why do a bunch of people have to chase the fox into the ground whilst making a sport and spectacle out of it. I would love to post a link to some of the videos of those people screaming and shouting and having a laugh at the death of an animal but i will not because it will upset people who may not have seen what its like in the first place.

A farmer with his shotgun can do it with less stress to the animal. However there is no fun or sport in that

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

Interesting choice for the fox really, a slow lingering death full of pellets, gnaw your own foot of caught on a snare or poison, none of them are particularly nice but hunting is banned, I don't know for certain how hunting works or how a fox is killed but I do know for certain I'm not swayed by the emotive language of certain groups and individuals, is the fox ripped to bits alive or is it killed by a single dog and then torn up after death as is claimed by the hunt masters and if so how is that worse than it's natural predators the eagle owl and golden eagle swooping straight through them as happens on hunts now.

If you are saying that hunts are using eagles to kill the foxes then fine ,it certainly is a lot more natural and civilized than setting a pack of dogs onto it ,tearing it apart and then wiping whats left all over some kids face.
Culling foxes is needed ,they have very few natural predators and none at all in most parts of the UK ,so any method used will be unpalatable to some