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

>> It seems perfectly reasonable behaviour to me.<<

Maybe but that is becasue you are a human being. A fox is an animal. Name one animal in the wild that will kill more than it can carry, or at least drag to a place of safety.

There is only one creature I know of that will go on an unprovoked killing spree and that is the Great White Shark when it gets into a feeding frenzy. But we are talking about land mammals here.

Can you imagine a fox carrying off a dozen dead chickens! True they will gorge, but thats the way canines transport food back to their cubs. They regurgitate. Even so, they would still have a problem gorging a dozen chickens.

Leaving dead animals lying around does the fox no good. There are plenty of scavengers around to take care of them and the fox knows that - it ain't stupid. There would be a far better chance of the chickens still being there the following night if they were left alive.


Donald

How many scavengers do you find in the average hen coop?

Politically the cruelty to animals argument is negated by the complete disregard or rather political savvy not to pursue the much more common and cruel sport of course fishing. I think the biggest participant sport in the UK.

No, the reason for the ban was simply Labour apparatchiks ruthlessly suppressing what they believed to be a socially incorrect minority. The fact that fox hunting employs and is followed by all social classes, whatever class is, was an inconvenient fact that was ignored. I was always of the opinion that a responsible society protected it's minorities not persecuted them.

Great Whites donn't go on killing sprees any more than any other shark. They can be provoked into it by highly unnatural interference by humans though.

So maybe you have a point.

How come the hunters manage to safely house entire packs of dogs, but farmers can't keep a fox out of a chicken coop? It's not rocket science .

As cunning as a fox.

>> How many scavengers do you find in the average hen coop? <<

A flock of crows, jackdaws and similar birds will soon make short work of a flock of dead chickens. Those that the birds don't get, the farmer will, so either way, dead chickens don't hang about for long.

Turning the argument for and against fox hunting into a skirmish in the so called class war doesn't do anything for or against it Just like fox hunting, the opposition to it transcends class boundaries.

BTW: I am not a Labour supporter, have never voted labour, and probably never will.

Donald

I'm firmly apolitical but it was blatantly obvious that the fox hunting ban, from the Labour politicians point of view, had nothing to do with cruelty to animals and everything to do with old fashioned, perceived class warfare.

Argh! It's nothing to do with whether the fox is a pest or not! That point is academic to the issue of hunting.

Even assuming:

1. Foxhunting is an exclusive persuit of the upper / lower classes.

2. Foxhunting is good / bad for employment.

3. Foxes are vermin / a self-regulating population.

4. People look nice in red jackets / look like silly anachronisms.

etc etc etc

This is irrelevant with regards to whether it's humane/morally acceptable/utterly sick to ceremonially tear apart an animal for entertainment. Thankfully the government decided (with prompting from the public) that causing an animal pain SOLELY for the gratification of certain people should be illegal. What people who are pro-hunting really need to be arguing is that a) Causing the bloody death of a wild animal IS a valid form of entertainment or b) Foxes and stags are non-sentient and have a nervous system incapable of processing pain. When these points have been successfully argued, the pro-hunting lobby will have a lot more sympathy.

Apologies for being repetitive but substitute roach, carp or perch for fox. The animal cruelty arguement must be consistent if it is to be the credible reason for banning a minority pursuit.

Apologies for being repetetive but no one except the extreme fringe give a toss about fish in terms of animal cruelty.

And as for legislation needing to be consistent, well, what able nonsense.

To also sound repetitive, the full pageantry of a hunt is a lot more offensive to some than a solitary fisherman sat quietly on the bank. That is ignoring the issues of abundance / intelligence / cute fluffiness that separate fish and foxes. To paraphrase someone else on this thread, you have to start somewhere.

The move to ban fox hunting goes back a long, long time. The first official protest goes back as far as 1976, initiated by the RSPCA. However, the opposition to fox hunting goes back even further to 1924 with the League Against Cruel Sports.

It wasn't until the Labour Party took up the cudgel in 1997 that the issue began to take centre stage. As stated earlier, the pro-hunters have had a long time to formulate a coherent argument in favour, but because of there inability to do so, we end up where we are to day.

So it is difficult to see how it can be construed as a class orientated political stunt.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/428984.stm

Is Sir Paul McCartney is against fox hunting, then that is good enough for me.

Donald

Christ, if Paul MacCartney is against it then it must then the Pro-Hunting Lobby must be right.

Sanctimonious choker of chickens, that man.

Don't you mean Spanker of Monkeys?
Sorry. Couldn't resist. I'll go away again now

I believe you'll find that the two terms are roughly equivalent and indicative of the my opinion of the man concerned.

Well ok. 'Don't you mean' should've read 'Alternatively'. Happy now? . Whatever, it's still cruel to poor innocent creatures .

Right. I firstly would like to say that I am against hunting. But probably unlike many people on here, I have actually been . I had a blast. It was great fun charging hell for leather round the countryside on a horse. Right up until the point where the fox got killed. Having seen that with my own eyes, I vowed never to go again. The sound it made is not something I forgot in a hurry.

What infuriated me more than anything is the unfairness of it. What chance does one fox have against 30 odd baying hounds and an equal numner of b(r)aying humans? And when the poor sod *does* get away and go to ground, they send in men with spades to dig it out and get the terriers in. It does not take that many people to control a pack of hounds (in fact, any attempt from anyone else apart from the huntsman to influence them is *very* much frowned upon). So why are all those other people there? because they can, not to help control vermin. Well tough luck. Find something else to do with your horse.

>> I was always of the opinion that a responsible society protected it's minorities not persecuted them. <<

A responsible society protects minorities that have no choice. Those based on race, disability or sexual orientation, etc.

If you chose to make yourself part of a minority, you cannot expect the same protection as those that have no choice.

Those that chose to make themselves part of a minority have to take their chances with the rest of the population. Thats what democracy is about.

Donald

This may seem like a rather obvious and crass point, but 30 (or whatever) dogs, 20 horses and 20 humans vs 1 fox. Who is the minority?

Primarily I dont particualrly care about fox-hunting. It seems to me to be a largly irrelevant non issue.

However I does put my back up when the issue of "democracy" is bought up in reference to the issue.

Put simply at the last two elections Labour have pledged to ban fox hunting. A policy usually supported by a majority of the population in national survays. At both of these elections the Labour party won massive majoritys.

As far as I am concerned that means they have a democratic mandate to ban fox hunting, simple.

I was trying to keep politics out of it, but the assertion that fox hunters are a minority and therefore are deserving of protection is a fallacious argument.

Donald