Becoming disillusioned about hunting

[Oldandcynical]

I have always been a hunt supporter and followed on foot and horse for many years. I have always supported hunting as a valuable tool for pest control and defended it's existence. However recently I have been hearing things about my local hunt which are questioning my beliefs on this issue. A recent verified press story about a local hunt (not the one that I usually follow but a local one netherless) carrying out practices that although not illegal, would not be ethical, as well as nasty rumours about practices that some other hunts are using is making me question the very arguments that myself and others have been using for years. This alongside the seemingly ever increasing role of the terrier man in another of my local hunts is making me realise that the fittest do not survive as they often get bolted anyway. Am I just unlucky to live in an area where hunting seems to be less about the original values and more about giving the London set on their hirelings value for their cap, or is hunting losing it's way?

I know that posting this in this area of the forum may be controversial but as a serial lurker I thought that there may be far more knowledgable people than me able to give their opinions here, and would also like to reiterate that I am not anti hunting at all, (well in theory anyway) but am questioning my own viewpoint in response to unsavoury 'rumours' heard from reputable sources, tabloid propaganda which I am trying to ignore, and posts on other areas of the forum about hunts going through property without permission and causing issues. Would like to know what other people think, thank you.

 

[Nancykitt]

Just interested to know a little more detail of the practices you mention here.

 

[Oldandcynical]

I don't feel that it's appropriate (and possibly not even legal) to report the rumours that I have heard on an open forum like this, however the tabloid article that the daily mail ran is in the public domain and searchable. I think it was around a month ago/ 6 weeks ago and involved secret camera footage from private property that I also wonder about the legalities of? I don't believe that anything illegal was being carried out by the hunt but I do think that it is unethical and goes against the true values of fox hunting. I also know a few of the individuals in question and am aware of why they were doing what they were doing.

 

[cptrayes]

http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?683476-Hunting-Ban-ten-years-on



http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/foru...eport-foxes-being-fed-by-hunt-caught-on-video


The topic has been done to death recently, I think. Unfortunately, as a new poster, there's no way of us knowing whether your post is genuine or a wind up. I am sorry to sound so rude, and if you read those threads you'll find that there is no-one who would like you to be genuine more than me, but we're a bit stuck given your anonymity.

 

[Oldandcynical]

Interesting! I thought my lurking was serial but I clearly don't read threads properly. Thank you for the links to those two threads. I see that there are many others like me who are questioning what I have seen and heard.

With regards to my identity, I have been reading the posts on this forum for a while (but not as thoroughly as i thought!) but I am genuine in my post above. Obviously you have no way of knowing if that is true or not but what else can I say?! I am very much a pleasure rider, I do a bit of everything not particularly well but I have fun doing it. I used to hunt a lot, in fact for two seasons was lucky enough to be out pretty much every week as I rode for a lady who hunted every day and had several horses on the go. I had no horse at the time so rode her horses and helped out her groom about 3 times a week and in return got free hunting. As this lady was a prominent member of the hunt I was often up at the front, not always with the field and as a result I got a very good view of what hunting was really about. This was when I started to feel uncomfortable about the whole thing but because I was having fun I ignored it :-/.

Then I got my own horse and started going out regularly with the bloodhounds. I found the people much friendlier, (my local hunt has a rep for being a little snobby) and realised that you could get the horsey fix of hunting without the uncomfortable feeling. Then I started really listening to what I was hearing about the hunt and thinking about what I had seen.

I think I may be unlucky in that one of the local masters is not a very nice man really, and fits the stereotype of a rah rah huntsman lording it around the country and I am sure that there are many hunts who are truly about vermin control, this is not my experience though.

 

[cptrayes]

Interesting! I thought my lurking was serial but I clearly don't read threads properly. Thank you for the links to those two threads. I see that there are many others like me who are questioning what I have seen and heard.

With regards to my identity, I have been reading the posts on this forum for a while (but not as thoroughly as i thought!) but I am genuine in my post above. Obviously you have no way of knowing if that is true or not but what else can I say?! I am very much a pleasure rider, I do a bit of everything not particularly well but I have fun doing it. I used to hunt a lot, in fact for two seasons was lucky enough to be out pretty much every week as I rode for a lady who hunted every day and had several horses on the go. I had no horse at the time so rode her horses and helped out her groom about 3 times a week and in return got free hunting. As this lady was a prominent member of the hunt I was often up at the front, not always with the field and as a result I got a very good view of what hunting was really about. This was when I started to feel uncomfortable about the whole thing but because I was having fun I ignored it :-/.

Then I got my own horse and started going out regularly with the bloodhounds. I found the people much friendlier, (my local hunt has a rep for being a little snobby) and realised that you could get the horsey fix of hunting without the uncomfortable feeling. Then I started really listening to what I was hearing about the hunt and thinking about what I had seen.

I think I may be unlucky in that one of the local masters is not a very nice man really, and fits the stereotype of a rah rah huntsman lording it around the country and I am sure that there are many hunts who are truly about vermin control, this is not my experience though.

You'll have people thinking you are another identity of mine in a minute. We'd get on well!

My experience is much the same as yours and I have up fox hunting for the same reasons.

 

[Aleka81]

Interesting! I thought my lurking was serial but I clearly don't read threads properly. Thank you for the links to those two threads. I see that there are many others like me who are questioning what I have seen and heard.

With regards to my identity, I have been reading the posts on this forum for a while (but not as thoroughly as i thought!) but I am genuine in my post above. Obviously you have no way of knowing if that is true or not but what else can I say?! I am very much a pleasure rider, I do a bit of everything not particularly well but I have fun doing it. I used to hunt a lot, in fact for two seasons was lucky enough to be out pretty much every week as I rode for a lady who hunted every day and had several horses on the go. I had no horse at the time so rode her horses and helped out her groom about 3 times a week and in return got free hunting. As this lady was a prominent member of the hunt I was often up at the front, not always with the field and as a result I got a very good view of what hunting was really about. This was when I started to feel uncomfortable about the whole thing but because I was having fun I ignored it :-/.

Then I got my own horse and started going out regularly with the bloodhounds. I found the people much friendlier, (my local hunt has a rep for being a little snobby) and realised that you could get the horsey fix of hunting without the uncomfortable feeling. Then I started really listening to what I was hearing about the hunt and thinking about what I had seen.

I think I may be unlucky in that one of the local masters is not a very nice man really, and fits the stereotype of a rah rah huntsman lording it around the country and I am sure that there are many hunts who are truly about vermin control, this is not my experience though.

From what you have said you are clearly Oxon based or very close....all I can say is don't believe everything you here. If I am wrong about your area I apologise

 

[Oldandcynical]

You are not a million miles away but not oxon, although it was the delightful farmers bloodhounds who I went out with and thoroughly enjoyed. Im in Gloucestershire .

 

[Herne]

I will be happy to go into this in much greater detail if you wish when I am slightly less busy (at the weekend) - however, I will leave you with this for now: the fact that some people do a thing badly does not make the thing itself bad. The reasoning and justifications that you previously held do not become invalidated because some others may not hold them...

 

[SkewbyTwo]

Im in Gloucestershire .

Me too and much of your first post, I could have written.

I lost my hunter this year and to my astonishment, realised that as my other two have other jobs they love, I myself am not so inclined to hunt.

I too have perhaps found out a little too much. Like you, I am now wondering, did I act a little blind to what I was seeing - and what foot followers have to say is very enlightening - because I and horse were having so much fun. The horse adored it so there was no question.

I don't know if any hunt actually lets fox have best any more. But I was told, at my hunt, that if the farmer wants it dug out, it must be dug out.

 

[Oldandcynical]

I will be happy to go into this in much greater detail if you wish when I am slightly less busy (at the weekend) - however, I will leave you with this for now: the fact that some people do a thing badly does not make the thing itself bad. The reasoning and justifications that you previously held do not become invalidated because some others may not hold them...

Thanks for your reply but I think that what you say is the same point as me- the idea of hunting is fine but the reality of what happens and the people are that doing it is sometimes far from what should be happening.....in addition I guess one problem is that for fox hunting to work it needs to be efficient hence the use of the terrier man, but it is this search of efficiency which effects the ethical argument for fox hunting in my opinion.

Me too and much of your first post, I could have written.

I lost my hunter this year and to my astonishment, realised that as my other two have other jobs they love, I myself am not so inclined to hunt.

I too have perhaps found out a little too much. Like you, I am now wondering, did I act a little blind to what I was seeing - and what foot followers have to say is very enlightening - because I and horse were having so much fun. The horse adored it so there was no question.

I don't know if any hunt actually lets fox have best any more. But I was told, at my hunt, that if the farmer wants it dug out, it must be dug out.

And Skewby I think we are in agreement!

 

[Clodagh]

I hunted obsessively all my life, my parents hunted, my husband was a terrier man for 20 years. I don't go any more, since the ban it all got too...complicated...and stopped being fun for me.
I can now tell you that it is far more efficient, quicker and kinder to kill a fox with a rifle than with a pack of hounds. On the support of hunting side we shoot every fox on the farm, they were all safe unless they came in the garden in daylight in our hunting days.

 

[avthechav]

I hunted obsessively all my life, my parents hunted, my husband was a terrier man for 20 years. I don't go any more, since the ban it all got too...complicated...and stopped being fun for me.
I can now tell you that it is far more efficient, quicker and kinder to kill a fox with a rifle than with a pack of hounds. On the support of hunting side we shoot every fox on the farm, they were all safe unless they came in the garden in daylight in our hunting days.

Watching this post with interest... I think that the fact that true hunting discriminates rather than just obliterating everything in sight is a very strong point, but like the OP I have heard about people feeding foxes etc and surely when u add this in to the mix, and the fact that the terriers are used to bolt foxes that have 'made it' it mitigates this as a pro point again? Also surely farmers want the hunt to exterminate as many foxes as possible, otherwise why would they allow them across their land? So again this is against the point that the fittest survive..... It's an ethical minefield! I am very confused where I stand on this these days.

 

[Alec Swan]

I hunted obsessively all my life, my parents hunted, my husband was a terrier man for 20 years. I don't go any more, since the ban it all got too...complicated...and stopped being fun for me.
I can now tell you that it is far more efficient, quicker and kinder to kill a fox with a rifle than with a pack of hounds. On the support of hunting side we shoot every fox on the farm, they were all safe unless they came in the garden in daylight in our hunting days.

You won't be alone in your thoughts, but then as this is a changing world, with emphasis and influence arriving from near alien directions, so there's little that we can do to halt or even slow down, change. Whilst the well being of our vulpine population seems to be the last consideration for many, so progress and the evolving aspects of our rural idle, seem to have rather lost their way.

For a good few years I worked as a gamekeeper, and on large Estates with equally large days and bags, and though I still shoot, the attraction of those 'paid' days are holding no appeal. Our Countryside is no longer administered to nor supported solely by, those who live that life. The commercialised aspect of shooting, and it's now big business, has added a degree of vulgarity to the pastime, with value for money being the primary consideration, rather than any consideration for the ethics of what we do. Similarly, Hunting has also gone through changes where those who would have us desist from our sport, hold sway with little thought to the well being of the quarry.

It's all a great shame.

Oldandcynical (a user name with which I have a degree of agreement!) , there will always be those, as there have always been, who will behave in a manner which only serves themselves. Not everyone who hunts conducts themselves or would condone, the behaviour which you've described. There are still those, and they are many, who are clinging on to their memories of better times.

Alec.

 

[Herne]

As someone who was a Master of Foxhounds for sixteen seasons and has managed farms in areas where no hunting takes place, I have seen and practiced most forms of fox control in my time.

Yes, some people can abuse hunting practices (as they can any form of animal control) but, in my experience, the majority do not.

The thing to remember about the justifications of the various options of control is that, to a certain extent, they are hypothetical. The reality is that we all operate in a madly disorganised hodge-podge of different ways for foxes to die - hunting, shooting, snaring, roadkill, disease, etc. It is therefore almost impossible to look and say "See: this effect is solely due to this measure".

A typical example was for antis to say: People shot more foxes than hunts killed, therefore hunting was less efficient than shooting.

That is a fallacious argument. It only demonstrated that more fox shooting took place than hunting (which, when you consider that only about 50% of our landmass has ever been hunted isn't surprising). It wasn't possible for hunts to kill foxes that someone else had already shot.

The reality is that if shooting of foxes had somehow stopped altogether, hunting could have expanded to fill the gap. A hunt that currently covered 2000 square miles, hunting 2 days a week could have turned into 2 hunts covering 1000 square miles each and hunting four days per week each.

An easier example than fox hunting to look at is stag-hunting in the west country. When the hunts stopped during the last war, the result upon the deer herds on Exmoor was catastrophic and almost unrecoverably so. A well-documented lesson that the anti-hunters refuse to acknowledge.

So, yes, some land-owners did demand that more foxes on their land were killed than the hunts would have chosen to, hence the need for terriermen, etc - but that does not mean that the rest of the hunting did not still have the benefits that hunting brings.

And even in areas like that, as Clodagh says above, the operation of the hunts still resulted in a higher fox population in many areas.

For gamekeepers and shepherds, if you under-control your fox population, it costs you money in lost lambs and gamebirds - so the obvious thing to do is to "be sure" by killing lots. If, on the other hand, they were leaving part, or all, of their fox control to the hunt, then they were more likely to be reactive to a definite problem rather than pro-active in eradicating problems before they happened - which was of benefit to the fox population as a whole - as well as to the whole ecosystem in which they lived.

The benefits of hunting are real. Don't lose the faith.

 

[pixie]

How about the hunts who seem to think it is their right to gallop through anyone's land, regardless of whether permission has been given or in fact denied. They recently, after being told that they were not allowed on the property, went right through the paddocks of my neighbour's livery yard, which still had horses in. Horses riled up and left injured. Previously the same hunt has been across our cropped fields, through our woodland and cut some of our wire fences. This again is despite them being told that they do not have permission to be on the land.

 

[Alec Swan]

How about the hunts who seem to think it is their right to gallop through anyone's land, regardless of whether permission has been given or in fact denied. They recently, after being told that they were not allowed on the property, went right through the paddocks of my neighbour's livery yard, which still had horses in. Horses riled up and left injured. Previously the same hunt has been across our cropped fields, through our woodland and cut some of our wire fences. This again is despite them being told that they do not have permission to be on the land.

Name the pack responsible for this shameful behaviour, and I will believe your story.

Alec.

 

[pixie]

Pm'd you

 

[Alec Swan]

Pm'd you

Thank you, I've replied.

Alec.

 

[Oldandcynical]

The benefits of hunting are real. Don't lose the faith.

So in that case does the hunting community need to get better at 'shopping their own' ? If we agree that hunting in it's purest form has a role and some people abuse these principles, instead of the cover each other and turn the other cheek approach, should hunt staff and supporters get better at reporting illegal practices....(rather than ignoring them or pretending that it doesn't happen?)

 

[Alec Swan]

So in that case does the hunting community need to get better at 'shopping their own' ? If we agree that hunting in it's purest form has a role and some people abuse these principles, instead of the cover each other and turn the other cheek approach, should hunt staff and supporters get better at reporting illegal practices....(rather than ignoring them or pretending that it doesn't happen?)

The MHA or the MFA regulate, or monitor the conduct of most packs, and any conduct which is seen as being less than acceptable should be reported to those regulating bodies. The most effective form of regulation comes from within.

Alec.

 

[Tiddlypom]

The most effective form of regulation comes from within.

Only if the regulating bodies are effective. Are they?

 

[Alec Swan]

Only if the regulating bodies are effective. Are they?

A good question, and I'd suggest 'Mostly so'! Peer pressure, whether to encourage our good or bad behaviour, tends to be of far greater use than 'regulation'.

Alec.

 

[Herne]

Agree. Peer pressure actually works better than pressure from outside. If someone is accused of doing something by someone who is known to be antagonistic anyway, it is easy to dismiss the accusation as malicious. When it comes from your peer group on the other hand, it's a different thing.

The OP talked about "unethical" practices. Unethical is a pretty vague term because "ethics" are a matter of opinion.

 

[Alec Swan]

The problem, it seems to me, is that 40 odd years ago, and certainly previously, 'correct' behaviour was regulated by those who 'Hunted'. Today we are monitored and regulated, externally, and by those who have no wish to see Hunting continue, nor have they any interest in the furtherance of any positive aspect of our sport. Sad, innit?!

Alec.

 

[LittleRooketRider]

Name the pack responsible for this shameful behaviour, and I will believe your story.

Alec.

How about the hunts who seem to think it is their right to gallop through anyone's land, regardless of whether permission has been given or in fact denied. They recently, after being told that they were not allowed on the property, went right through the paddocks of my neighbour's livery yard, which still had horses in. Horses riled up and left injured. Previously the same hunt has been across our cropped fields, through our woodland and cut some of our wire fences. This again is despite them being told that they do not have permission to be on the land.

As Alec ahs said... this is deemed shameful behaviour by the very vast majority of hunts if not all bar the odd few. As has also been said, do the actions of one (or a few hunts) make hunting as a whole wrong? No. Perhaps the reason peers are not so quick to react to wrong-doing is the feeling that hose against us will swoop on any chance to make hunting as a whole appear evil. (Not condoning wither behaviour but this is just a thought)

 

[luckylou]

How about the hunts who seem to think it is their right to gallop through anyone's land, regardless of whether permission has been given or in fact denied. They recently, after being told that they were not allowed on the property, went right through the paddocks of my neighbour's livery yard, which still had horses in. Horses riled up and left injured. Previously the same hunt has been across our cropped fields, through our woodland and cut some of our wire fences. This again is despite them being told that they do not have permission to be on the land.

This happened to me today.

They (a Gloucestershire hunt too by the way) were specifically told last season that they were not to come across our farm.

Today, I had been out all morning and was just driving home, as I turned into my drive there were a couple of lads on a quad bike heading up towards the house, so I questioned them and they said they had been asked by the whipper in to turn of the electric fencing on the farm!

A few minutes later the hunt came down the road and were just about to turn into the drive when my horses, in the field next to the road, jumped out of their field, going completely mental, luckily I saw them and ran down the drive shouting hang on my horses are out, hounds were everywhere and just winding my horses up, I went to fetch headcollars and they continue up the drive which panicked my two who then went straight through barbed wire and livestock fencing, take out about 20 ft of fencing. My horses rugs are wrecked from the barbed wire, and one of my horses is left with cuts and is reluctant to put weight on his hind leg as a result. I am bloody furious.

To be fair to the guys on the quad, they came back and fixed the fencing and said they would have a word with the master as I told them the situation but still, who the hell do they think they are!

 

[Countryman]

To be fair to the guys on the quad, they came back and fixed the fencing and said they would have a word with the master as I told them the situation but still, who the hell do they think they are!

You are well within your rights to be furious. However, as to "who do they think they are", this sounds to be honest like a genuine case of mistaking where they have access and where they don't. However, you are entitled to an apology from the Master and I'd follow that up if I were you.

 

[Tiddlypom]

You are well within your rights to be furious. However, as to "who do they think they are", this sounds to be honest like a genuine case of mistaking where they have access and where they don't. However, you are entitled to an apology from the Master and I'd follow that up if I were you.

Ah bless, the Master is merely mistaken. Of course he/she wouldn't take the hunt across land that was off limits :rolleyes3:.

OP, I would report this immediately to the MFA (assuming its a foxhound pack) and CC in the hunt mastership. This sort of thing happens too often. Don't let some old duffer brandishing a bottle of whiskey as an apology be an end to the matter. If any hunt masters aren't capable of recognising where they are or are not invited, then they should stand down.

Hope your horses are ok today.

(I am pro hunt btw, as long as it is properly organised).

 

[ester]

You are well within your rights to be furious. However, as to "who do they think they are", this sounds to be honest like a genuine case of mistaking where they have access and where they don't. However, you are entitled to an apology from the Master and I'd follow that up if I were you.

Surely not given that the poster did actually ask them to stop!!?