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

To all pro-hunters............
I aprologise MOST profusely..........

What does fox taste like????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

I think it leaves a bad taste in your mouth...

I just found this thread on fox hunting over at Ask h2g2 and thought the folks working on this entry might find it useful and interesting. http://www.h2g2.com/F19585&thread=98825&skip=0&show=20

Walter, if you're there, Duncan 'Spearcarrier' Jones (posting 32) gives a good account of the current class situation. He's obviously more politically aware than I am. I expect you might enjoy chatting with him about it.

Sal

There seems to be a confusion about "cruel" and "indifferent". Also the phrase "killing for pleasure". No sportsmen I know enjoy suffering for its own sake; though I'd admit that a lot of them are indifferent to it. So their actions may be cruel, but this comes from indifference rather than sadism.

Some of my colleagues are going to shoot deer this weekend (we are in Sweden). Deer are a problem, if they are not killed, then the entire population is weakened by winter. There is a myth that "mother nature" is kind. Nature is one cruel m**********r.

It is definitely better for the deer for some to be killed quickly, and the rest to be able to eat, than for them all to be hungry and the weakest to die long lingering deaths from starvation. Sentimentality can be incredibly cruel too.

There is definitely a thing called bloodlust, and it ain't pretty. But we are animals ourselves, decended from a long line of hunters. Its in the blood and bone of the species, I'm afraid.

I have certainly heard passionate arguments against foxhunting on class grounds. And it certainly survives because there is a large number of people who can subsidise it. But so does motor racing.

agcB

Nature weeds out the week which makes the remaining population stronger. Hunters weed out the strong (for trophies) which makes the population weeker.

Control of the sexual urge when it is innappropriate is expected from everyone - I would say the same applies to control of the bloodlust urge. Moreover it is only comparatively recently in the evolution of humans that we hunted at all - and even then it was never more than an occaisional supplement to our diet. The fact that regular burgers lead to chronic obesity is evidence enough of that.

Everyone who goes hunting enjoys the actual death of the fox - other wise what is the point in digging it up and letting the hounds at it when it goes to ground?

Finally, if I set a dog on a rabbit, or a bear, or another dog this is illegal - why on earth should it become legal if I dress up in red and use hundreds of dogs to kill a fox? Not one of the many pro hunting people has answered that, and I haven't heard back from the countryside alliance when I put it to them.

> "what is the point in digging it up and letting the hounds at it when it goes to ground?"

To kill the fox. As pest control. Some huntsmen may also get pleasure out of it, some may not - but the basic point is to kill foxes where they are in areas where they are a nuisance. The same point that the marksmen who the government seem to be planning on replacing the hunt with will have for killing a fox.

> "it is only comparatively recently in the evolution of humans that we hunted at all"

Umm, we were hunter-gatherers well before we were farmers. Not that it's relevant in any way.

> "Finally, if I set a dog on a rabbit, or a bear, or another dog this is illegal - why on earth should it become legal if I dress up in red and use hundreds of dogs to kill a fox?"

Bears are not pests, and their numbers do not need to be controlled in the UK, because they are not native to this country. We do not need to kill bears. Dogs are not pests and their numbers do not need to be controlled in this country. Almost all dogs are owned by someone, so if they need to be killed, then the owner can take them to the vet, and this is a more humane way of killing them. Wild rabbits can be pests, but they are slower, and so it is more humane to shoot them with a shotgun at pointblank range, than hunt them with dogs.

Foxes can be pests, and the most humane and efficient* way of dealing with them appears to be the hunt. Yes it causes suffering, but so would leaving them to starve, and so would using marksmen.

Is this a satisfactory answer?

*efficient here meaning that not one penny of my income tax goes towards regulating the numbers of foxes.

--

A question for those anti-h : there do seem to have been cases where various hunts have acted in an inhumane manner. Perhaps even many cases. But, assuming that hunting could be properly regulated so that these problems could be avoided, would hunting then be acceptable?

I expect that fox tastes much like beef, but not as nice. If it was nicer than beef we'd have domesticated the fox years ago.

agcB

I think a lot of the failure to understand each other between pro and anti hunt people arises because of the cruelty and indifference. There are people who draw a thick black line between humans and all other species and their sense of caring often stops dead at that line. I and a lot of other people have a problem with that. In my opinion it's the sort of mentality that allowed people like the Nazis to simply move the thick black line a little bit, pretend that the Jews were on the other side of it and then treat them as though they were animals. It's not just the Nazis either - it happened in Vietnam and Yugoslavia and it's happening in some African countries right now. If people think it's ok to treat animals that are similar to humans in all sorts of important ways, with such utter contempt, it's hardly surprising that they're capable of treating each other with such brutality. The thick black line is artificial and can be drawn under one's own feet (which is in fact its usual location).

A human who treats another human with indifference verging on cruelty would probably be considered a psychopath but when other animals are treated abominably and without regard for their suffering, it's considered by some, to be quite different. I think that's a mistake. It's a dangerous attitude and can quickly be adapted to embrace whoever it seems expedient to dehumanise.

Nature is, as you say, very unkind. Our evolutionary path has brought us to where we are - it's true. But we're in a different situation from our ancestors. We can probably adapt to almost anything. We're no longer driven almost entirely by instincts. We have no natural predators anymore. We're the predators (natural or otherwise) of just about everything. If we don't use our imagination and self-restraint, we could strip our planet of other species. If we don't start taking a dim view of destructive behaviour, wherever we see it, it won't be just other species that suffer, it'll be us. I think sentimentality can be very useful. We've evolved that too. I wonder if we'd be where we are today (you know - 6 billion living often cheek by jowl), without sentimentality.

Sal

Lucinda -
> "what is the point in digging it up and letting the hounds at it when it goes to ground?"

To kill the fox. As pest control. Some huntsmen may also get pleasure out of it, some may not - but the basic point is to kill foxes where they are in areas where they are a nuisance.
--------------------
This is not true. In the pheasant and grouse shooting areas the gamekeepers control the foxes extremely efficiently (along with birds of prey and domestic cats, sadly), by shooting and poisoning.
(The best way to shoot a fox is to dazzle it with a powerful torch and, when it 'freezes', to shoot it at point-blank range. On the other hand, if you think wild rabbits are slow enough to be shot in this way you've obviously never encountered one!)
However, when other areas have been over-hunted young foxes are often taken from the game areas (where they don't want them) to restock the hunting areas. To what conclusion does that lead you?

Hey Kat

I see you've also noticed we don't have a plague of foxes that urgently require control. Well spotted that entity!

Sal

Actually dog numbers DO need to be controlled in this country. Ask your local branch of the RSPCA. Many ignorant people allow their bitches to have one litter before spaying them, because they think this is 'kinder' and, if they don't abandon the pups themselves, the people to whom they give them often do.
Dogs that 'need to be killed' are not often taken to the vet. Farmers and huntsmen kill their surplus animals by drowning or shooting. Our local RSPCA representative (among others) has spent decades trying to convince them to give them to him for rehoming instead, but they 'don't have the time.' Often the dogs aren't even shot cleanly, and are found, sometimes days later, and have to endure further suffering, at the vet's hands. They hardly ever recover fully.

BTW: I noticed, further back in this thread, that someone claimed huntsmen have a bond with their hounds. That statement provided days of amusement here. Hounds/sheepdogs/gundogs are kept locked in unheated barns when they are not being worked. They are tools, not pets. They are treated accordingly. A pup that misbehaves is picked up by the ears and shaken. In order to teach them to respect sheep they are shut into a small space with a horned ram until they learn their lesson. I could continue, but is there any need. This is the mentality of the people who hunt, in this area anyway. I'm sure we can't be atypical.

>"Bears are not pests, and their numbers do not need to be controlled in the UK, because they are not native to this country. We do not need to kill bears."

But bears were native to this country until they were hunted to extinction. Along with wolves and boar.

When you use the word efficient to mean that it doesn't cost you one penny of your tax, wouldn't you rather 0.000001p of your tax went to killing foxes humanely, rather than the inhumane method you currently get for free?

So what is your view on stag-hunting then?

Rabbits are probably the worst pests in the English countryside. A very large section of the hill near Caistor is now off limits because their warrens have made it unstable and if you drive along some of the more deserted roads at night you can expect to hit one...with quite disasterous consequences for rabbit and headlight.
Rabbits now have only one common natural predator - the fox. For every fox you kill, a hundred more rabits survive. Are you people mad or uninformed? Well, you're not uninformed any longer...

Shooting or culling deer we anti foxhunters do not mind - (not me
anyway)........... deer is good to eat - it is a food animal...
foxes are not.......

'G'

Yet another well informed idea from Duncan!!!!!!

Less foxes = more rabbits...
More rabbits = more tractors with broken axles!.!.!.!......


'G'

Ayup Gandalf. Good to see you back.

Good to be back in this forum.

Duncan - you can shoot rabbits, (and I have, but not for 20 years), or go ferreting, with nets and dogs (which I have never done). Now feretting DOES strike me as cruel.

The main reasons I am not anti-hunting are the 10,000 foxhounds which would have to be put down (earlier in the thread Abi pointed out that they have been socialised as pack animals, and cannot be rehoused); the wildlife habitat which is maintained in areas where there are hunts both in the form of hedgerows and cover; and finally that the rural economy cannot take any more kicks in the teeth.

Jan Struther described bloodsports as "indefensible but irrisistable" and this is probably why they give rise to such heated debate. Irrisistable force - immovable object.

I do take on board the issue of where the black line is drawn - I have huge issues with the way that chimps and other primates are treated. And - if you read my home page - you will see that one of my fears is a world where genetic engineering has created multiple human species which would make it even easier to draw the black line between people. But that is an issue for another forum.

Gandalf, are you still around?

IMHO this article only needs a minor polish and perhaps a title along the lines of 'Fox Hunting in the UK', and there you are


Bossel (Scout)

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Agreed. Fox Hunting is still a very sensitive issue and this is an opinion peice.

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