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

I have a debate on Wednesday and the topic is:

That we should ban hunting as a sport

I'm negative, so I'm saying we shouldn't. The reason we have this topic is because The British Government recently banned hunting as a sport (anyone got any details, I hadn't heard about it till I looked at the page). On the resources page is says 'Why did the British Government ban hunting as a sport? What has the community response been?' so I'm wondering if anyone can help.

The other questions, if you feel like being really helful, are:


What exactly does hunting for sport involve? What animals are hunted and how are they killed?

Why has the British government recently banned hunting? What has the community response there been?

Who hunts for sport and why?

Is this a traditional cultural practice? Is there value in preserving these traditions? Why?

Do animals have rights? What rights do they have? How are the rights of humans and the rights of animals different? Where else in society do we protect animal rights?

What distinguishes hunting for sport from other forms of killing animals?

Do people deserve the freedom as a civil liberty to hunt? Should they have this freedom? Why or why not?

Will people obey a law banning hunting? How effective will it be? Is it better to regulate hunting than to ban it completely?

Does hunting endanger some endangered or rare species? Is sport hunting the major contributor to the drops in numbers or is it largely due to other factors?

Thankyou!
Cat

Hi Cat

I am personally against hunting of any sort. Here are one or two websites with opposing opinions:
http://www.rspca.org.uk/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RSPCACampaigns/Banhunting/BanhuntingHomepage
http://www.supportfoxhunting.co.uk/

And a bit of history: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3030136.stm
And up-to-date: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4320279.stm

Hope some of this helps.

turvy

So, they've only banned hunting with dogs, you can still use guns?

Damn... dogs is so much harder to argue that they should be allowed!

Cat

Well you could try the 'these dogs will have to be destroyed' view, which is cruel to the dogs instead of being cruel to the foxes. Foxes are the pest, after all, not the dogs. I don't think the dogs can be rehomed.

An old school friend of mine was a country girl and she said that unpleasant as it might be, the fox at least died quickly when caught by the dogs, but a shotgun might only wound it and it could still get away and then die an agonising death of infection and starvation.

Does that help?

I'm for banning any sort of hunting btw. All that chasing around of a small animal just doesn't seem to be something that should be done for fun! Just trying to help out a debate.

When a little more active (vrs lazy)I used to go hunting.But the things we hunted where introduced pests such as pigs and rabbits.Perhaps they should start up a buisness hunting feral pigs or rabbits here in Oz;BTW foxes are also introduced feral vermin here; they kill native wildlife.!Closer to home I think that hunting in the u/k is a bit of a w*nk as they are only carringing on like idiots to be seen.I organised a hunt for a British Gentelman once he was very impressed that the more he got (pigs/rabbits/goats) The more the landowner (a grazier )liked it ;he was also impressed by the fact that a days hunt was carried out on the one property(ranch)

The iniative to ban fox and stag hunting was a political sop to left wing Labour MP's by Tony Blair. Pure and simple. As Blair moved further and further to the right he needed some scrap of idealogical, Labour party cant to throw to his increasingly rebellious MP's. And true to form he announced, off the cuff, no consultation with his cabinet, that the Government would ban fox hunting this term. Goodness knows how much parliamentry time was wasted in forcing the hastily thrown together legislation through. In the end they had to invoke the Parliament Act to bypass the House of Lords who voted against the ban. The law, as it stands, is widely believed to be unenforceable as is the case in Scotland

Of course the alternative view to the above is that it had been part of the Labour Party Manifesto for seven years so hardly a 'surprise' for anyone.

The timing was not good, but let's not pretend that this wasn't something they had been saying they were going to do since before they were elected the first time in '97.

It does appear that the ban is largely an attack on the country "Toffs" who hunt by the City dwellers who do not. It really does polarise opinion as well - there do not seem to be anyone who does not have an opinion. For my two cents worth though, I dearly hope that anyone who does hunt from here in is thrown in jail, so guess where I stand....

Well, whilst I think it wildly funny to see 'country yobs' being 'subdued' in the same manner that the miners were, I am actually completely neutral on the ban, though I do find the Countryside Alliance's 'we can break the law with impugnity *absolutely* disgraceful.

I dare say they'll be a bit miffed if people start to disregard the law on burglary.

The big misconception that many people have is that the debate is on whether foxes should be killed. This is not the case. The debate is on whether foxes should be torn to pieces by dogs having been chased to exhaustion just to satisfy the bloodlust of those involved.

Just a few more "facts" to consider:

Foxes are vermin that attack sheep, geese, ducks and chickens.
Hunting is not the most efficient way of controlling foxes.
Hunting is a traditional country pursuit.
The fox may be "torn to bits" but that's not how it dies. Hounds bite the back of the neck, causing instant death. The last thing the dogs want is for the fox to be fighting back.
"Hunt saboteurs", in their blind love for cute furry little foxes, probably cause more distress and harm to horses and dogs. So much for being "animal lovers". Also, they don't seem to mind people hunting rats with guns.
The ban was politically motivated. It's a hangover from Labour's class war, pure and simple.
One of the initial studies used as a justification for a ban (which was actually about stress in deer hunting) has now been largely discredited.

I am against the ban.

RF

>The ban was politically motivated. It's a hangover from Labour's class war, pure and simple.<

Maybe so. But I don't per se have a problem with that either. The difficulty with the class war has always been that only one side ever knew it was being fought. Ask the miners.

There is certainly a large element of class bias in the UK hunting laws. That's why 'working class' bloodsports such as cockfighting and bear baiting were banned long ago (1 or 2 centuries?) but 'upper class' 'sports' such as foxhunting and hare coursing were not.

Surely the best solutuion all round is to start hunting dogs (as opposed to hunting WITH dogs). Or could it be that the anti-hunting lobby is not the only one to have feelings for the cute and fluffy?

Incidentally, the number of foxes killed in Scotland has rocketed since hunting with dogs was banned - presumably killing off the argument that this is the most efficient method.

Gif

Try bringing up children. You do your best to teach them to be fair, to judge right from wrong, to treat life as sacred and to treat both people and animals with respect. Then you're put in the impossible position of trying to explain the pack of dogs, horses and upper-class types thundering across the field, chasing one utterly defenceless fox, for fun.

Sadly recent events haven't made the explanation a geat deal easier. The ban reminds me of Kyoto; it won't actually achieve very much but in ethical terms it is a necessary step forward for a supposedly enlightened society.

That's it.

If stopping cruelty to animals is the driver why not ban course fishing. What could be more cruel than exploiting a creature's hunger, piercing it's top jaw with a metal barb, tearing it from it's natural environment, dragging the barb back out of it's jaw while removing some of it's skin, imprisoning it by cramming it into a net with competitors and then letting it go to repeat the barbarous process over again.

Oh silly me, the majority of course fishermen are traditionally Labour supporters.

>Oh silly me, the majority of course fishermen are traditionally Labour supporters.<

You have proof of that statement, of course?

I'd suggest more to do with foxes being cute and cuddly, which fishes ain't. No one gives a toss about fishes.

It's a start! Banning cruel sports one by one, or just banning some, is better than letting them all continue.

Besides, democracy is supposed be about running a country for the good of the majority. Most people wanted an end to fox hunting - so it ended. If the vocal majority felt the sameway about fishing, it'd be next to go.

Hence the traditional. IMHO working mens clubs would usually have a fishing section and I've seen more flat caps and mufflers along t'canal than you'd find in Ferret and Firkin.

Democracies also respect the wishes and customs of minorities and if I remember correctly the majority of people were indifferent.

>and I've seen more flat caps and mufflers along t'canal than you'd find in Ferret and Firkin.<

Nothing to do with them being useful things for keeping out the cold then? Or did all the blokes with flat caps come with whippets and racing pigeons as well?

That's called stereo-typing. Which is exactly what you're accusing the Labour Party of doing by attacking the 'Toffs' who go fox hunting.