h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

To start with I'd like to say that I'm a veggie who attends protests to stop road building, stop distruction of valuable environments and protect animal's rights (and sometines human rights too). Having said that fox hunting is where I draw the line. I don't dissagree with it providing the hunt is run well and the fox is not dug from the ground and thrown to the dogs. There are several reasons I am not against the hunt.

First; in many areas where hunting does not take place the population of foxes has virtually been eradicated.

Second; where there is no hunt, talking to local people and games keepers reveals information such as "I shot 290 of them last year and the numbers are still goung up.". Fox numbers do need some kind of control.

Thirdly; Shooting does not always result in a clean kill and the animal can suffer for days before death somes and young healthy foxes are as likely to be shot as older or iller ones.

Fourthly; the hunt needs a well maintained environment to take place. Where there is a hunt there are hedgerows, small fields, varied crops and woodlands, etc. In other words, biodiversity. In places without a hunt there is less pressure to keep the area as natural as it is. Many of these features that help preserve thousands of specias of insects, birds and small mammels, could be lost.

I would like to state that I am NOT pro hunting. I am also NOT pro meat eating. (A passtime that I find even more distasteful unless it is a matter of survival. Thousands of farm animals are killed each day to keep our bellies full when crops could provide more food on less land. If more people bacame vegetarian then foxes would be in demand as pest control. They would keep numbers of rabbits, mice, voles etc. down on farms using organic methods and having trouble with pests). By the way, are you Veggie? Do you eat Organic food? Did you know that twice as many badgers are killed on the roads as by illegal badger baiting? Thousands of foxes are killed and maimed by cars every year but I don't hear you calling for cars to be banned.

The fact is we do need to control populations of some distructive animals because we upset tha ballence. In some areas of Scotland the deer population is now out of control. It was out fault, we killed off their predators. We have a responsability to either maintain the ballance or re-introduce the predators.

We could have a vote on Fox hunting on H2G2 but we would need balanced facts and opinions. A successful article should present facts from both sides, and opinions from the writer. Without giving facts from both sides and giving a reader a chance to make up their own mind, doesn't do justice to an article that could be very informative, and could make a differance to peoples opinions.

Sorry to go on for so long but you did ask for some comments.

Dr Goof Lithium

Good Morning Doc.

Thankyou for your comments. From what I read into them you must be a country person youself. Firstly, from what I have seen and heard, a proportion of the time, the fox IS dug up when it has 'gone to ground'
Secondly, 290 foxes per year??? This MUST be imagination. A healthy fox family needs a couple of square miles of territory to survive. I cannot see how I, being totally ANTI-HUNT can put the PRO-HUNT view as I don't have one!!

I cannot understand why you brought road deaths into the arguement - these deaths have no relevancy in the arguement.

BTW
I am omnivore
'G'

As I said, I don't agree with foxes being dug once they have gone to ground, this is wrong and not part of the hunt. I'm a city dweller and we have several fox families in this small urban area where food isn't as easy to come to come by as a productive woodland. The number of foxes shot came from my grandparents, who are, anti-hunting, but live in a country area.

I mentioned the road deaths because humans kill animals in many brutal ways, without any thought for their actions. Attacking the hunt is just an easy option. You'd probably save many more animals fron suffering if you became veggie and ate organic food. If it was publicised that some people got enjoyment from dressing in plastic overalls and workinh in slaughter-houses then this would get more attention too (many peopls that work in these places have a worrying view of life and Enjoy watching animals being slaughtered. Remember this next time you eat a burger).

Sport fishing where animals are hooked, damaged and returned, for no other purpose than fun is worse, in my opinion. There is after all a population control systen in place when it comes to fox hunting.

I didn't ask you to put a pro-hunt view, just a ballanced analysis of the subject not an emotive outpouring. An emotinv outpouring after a balanced analysis would get more attention and be more effective at getting your point of view across. Many people could have read the beginning of your article and not got to the end, thinking "Same old rants and raves as ever." and just switching off. If you can inform and educate then You'll find more people will agree with you.

Do you have any better suggestions for countryside managenent, for example. Give People other options and tell them why these are better.

Dr Goof Lithium

Thanks again, Doc.
I realise that I have become emotionally involved in this...
But then again, it is a very emotive issue.
I suppose I could always read Seigfreid Sassoon's 'Memoirs of a fox-hunting man'to get the other prospective.

Apologies in advance for my next comment; You seem to me by your responses to be as anti-meat as I am Anti fox-hunting.

No, not really. I ate a bacon sandwich the other day, the bacon wasn't even organic. I just think people should think through all the consiquences of thier actions at some point. None of us are any better than anyone else but we can all try to at least be aware of the problems we cause.

The issues of fox hunting are also tied in with the class struggle and sometimes the two get messed up a bit. Especially when government departments throw about mis-information and pay people to hand out leaflets asking people to instigate trouble on behalf of groups like "Class War", which ,from what little contact I've had with them, just seem like a group who had no real beginning, were manipulated by money, and still exist to give the police an excuse to attack protestors (I know for a fect that they have baan paid by independant contractors controlling security at a number of politically sensitive events in order to keep up an agressive presence and justify the need for tight security.)

I'm just critical of most things really. There is no right and wrong, just different degrees of caring.

No, not really. I ate a bacon sandwich the other day, the bacon wasn't even organic. I just think people should think through all the consiquences of thier actions at some point. None of us are any better than anyone else but we can all try to at least be aware of the problems we cause.

The issues of fox hunting are also tied in with the class struggle and sometimes the two get messed up a bit. Especially when government departments throw about mis-information and pay people to hand out leaflets asking people to instigate trouble on behalf of groups like "Class War", which ,from what little contact I've had with them, just seem like a group who had no real beginning, were manipulated by money, and still exist to give the police an excuse to attack protestors (I know for a fect that they have baan paid by independant contractors controlling security at a number of politically sensitive events in order to keep up an agressive presence and justify the need for tight security.)

I'm just critical of most things really. There is no right and wrong, just different degrees of caring.

Hi Doc
I have re-hashed the article, making it a hell of a lot less vitriolic, but saying more or less the same thing.

I think it is a lot better now!!

Yep, It's much better. Just one point, do foxes have extended families with a head (or Alpha) male, as lion prides do? I know that wolf populations are often structured this way but wasn't aware that it applied to foxes. I'll try to find out more and get back to you. It's an interesting idea. I think it has been discussed but was found to be impractical due to the huge number of foxes that would need to be treated. If you've got any newer info then please add it, I'd like to know.

Reference Foxes.
The fox forms a stable family group. Mating takes place in January/February, cubs being born about 49 days later. Usual litter 2 - 6.Only one litter per year is produced, of these, only two cubs are expected to survive to adulthood. The family group splits up in August/September. Because of food shortages/predation the life expectancy of a wild fox is only five to six years, although in captivity, in a zoo, they have been known to attain 12 years. Foxes are omniverous, and will eat almost anything, and are now becoming urbanised, coming into town gardens and allotments.(are we to have huntsmen galloping down our streets?!?)
Thats a shortish natural history bit on the fox. Not really relevant to the article, but gives you a little more info!!
'G'

Thanks,

We have a lot of urban foxes here. Some of the neighbours feed them. It's great to watch the young ones running round the garden and play fighting. One of my friends had her cat killed by a fox a few weeks back. She doesn't blame the fox but does feel sorry for her pet.

Perhaps the urban fox will save foxes in general from extinction??

Maybe, as long as the road kill rates don't get any higher (not that I think the general fox population is in that much danger anyway). I quite often see dead ones at the side of the road. It still wouldn't solve the problems of habitat distruction and loss of biodiversity though, which are my main concerns. Being a veggie helps, it takes a lot less land to provide vegetables for everyone to eat than it does to provide vegetables for the animals to eat and in turn the humans to eat.

I share your concerns reference loss of habitat and bidiversity. Also, genetic modification TERRIFIES me. Use of pesticides, and now this genetic thing is decimating insect populatios, which affects the birds that feed on them, and therefore the fox population that depends on them. No wonder Reynard raids the hen-house!

I beleive that not enough research has gone on into genetic modification. How is it going to effect future wildlife populations? (assuming that the genetically modified crops are palatable to them, especially the bottom of the chain, the insects)
How will these 'mutant' crops affect future humans?
'G'

I'm going to start off by asking Goof how you can say you are a vegetarian, yet still eat a bacon sandwich? That doesn't seem right.
I am not a vegetarian, I am a fully fledged meat eater, as due to various boring circumstances I would have to become full vegan, and at the moment that is too much work for me, especially as it would mean my son turning vegan too, at least while he was eating in my house. When out of our house we always have a lot of trouble finding places that supply food we can eat (we both avoid dairy products like the plague), as vegans, it would be impossible I think.

Anyway, I disagree with fox hunting too, as it seems to me that it causes unnecessary suffering to the fox before it dies. There must be other methods of controlling the population. As a town dweller who has never lived in the country, wouldn't the sheer numbers of foxes cause them to decline as lack of food meant they didn't survive? I would think that road accidents would also be another way, which seems harsh, but would be a form of "natural predator". I do try not to hit foxes in my taxi, the same way that I try not to hit rabbits, cats, and small children. If I did hit one and it didn't die, I must confess that my reaction would be to get help rather than finish it off mercifully.
I have no suggestions to offer on another way of controlling the population, but then, who put humans in charge of the other species that we should be controlling them?

Thanks, Mina
I knew there must be other researhers who would disagree with the 'hunt'!
BTW
Article now on Peer Review

'G'

Mina, why do you avoid dairy products?

My point about the hunt is that is the more natural way of selecting foxes to kill as the younger fitter ones get away and the old, ill and genetically less strong foxes get removed from the breeding and eating cycles. With other methods such as shooting you are as likely to till the healthy and leave the sick. This would be to the detriment of the whole population. I know that this kind of sounds like eugenics but that's what would happen in nature. That's what drives evolution (I'm not getting into that discussion too)

I do not eat meat as a rule but have, on occasion, faltered (normally when drunk at 3 in the morning when someone starts cooking bacon)

Surely taking the unhealthy ones out means that only the strong ones survive, meaning the species gets stonger? Or am I wrong? Which isn't entirely unheard of when I am discussing something I really don't know much about.

We avoid dairy (ie cows) products because if I believed in the devil I would consider them the oozings and drippings from it's suppurating wounds. We are allergic to them, well, my son is, I am merely intolerant. And I don't mean that they put me in a bad mood.

Mina, if you re-read my last post that's what I said. Unless I'm wrong, which is often.

Intolerant to milk products! Oh, No Baileys for you then.

You said: "With other methods such as shooting you are as likely to till the healthy and leave the sick. This would be to the detriment of the whole population."
Surely if we want the fox population down, that is good to be left with the manky old ones?
When I said about the strong ones I was meaning that would be a bad thing.
So, yes, I said what you did, but meant the opposite. I think.

And Baileys is fine, intolerance is one thing, sheer stupidity is another.

I'd like to see a healthy fox population rather than a sick one. If it has to be controlled by man then it should be a selective cull.

I could have worded my thoughts slightly better.