Got a bit unsettled today...League Against Cruel Sports

[skewby]

This post is not intended to be provocative, just to get information.

A few of the guys I work with taunt me about being into "blood sports" - I don't go on about it, but while I was getting my horse used to hunting I went on weekday meets, on the secretary's advice. I was open about why I needed the days, as odd days off are frowned upon, and also, they think you're off to interviews!

It's all good natured, and I don't get drawn in (apart from sometimes asking, do they know where the chicken roll in their sarnies has come from) but today one sent me a link to the LACS site.

I have to say, I was a bit unnerved. I am going hunting to make my own mind up, but some of the stuff on there was distressing. Foxes and cubs being clubbed to death with spades - is this correct? Sorry if I am hugely naive and I should know that this is what happens, whilst I am chatting away swigging port.

I don't know that it would stop me going, if it did - I suppose I am politely asking, what your thoughts are? We are clearly all animal lovers of one ilk or another. How do we reconcile it? I have always believed, foxes will be culled one way or another - and another can be snaring or shooting, neither of which I approve.

Slate me if you must! Just a question. Thank you all for any replies.

 

[Dogstar]

There are scumbos who abuse animals in all animal/horse related sports; thankfully they are few and far between in hunting, but when it does happen it is the individuals to blame- it should not tarnish the whole of hunting (though of course it does). Also, not everything the antis say is true believe it or not! and some of the stuff they use is decades old.

 

[popsicle]

There is a ban on hunting fox, you are just going to follow a pre laid scent and enjoy a good fast hack. Remind them of that

 

[Tinkerbee]

I'd just think...

Are the facts on such an organisations website likely to be unbiased and indicative of hunting as a whole?

I've seen "terriermen" not affiliated with any hunt to horrid things to foxes. The LACS would probably pick up on incidents such as this and paint them as the norm/widespread. Do such things go on in hunting circles? Probably. But its definately not the norm. Go hunting, see for yourself, make up your own mind based on real knowledge rather than propaganda.

 

[spacefaer]

The League must find it frustrating that despite their best attempts, that we are still operating within the law that they wanted put in place - and so must be floundering somewhat with nothing to fight against. Their prosecutions for the most part have been thrown out and it must be like fighting a marshmallow for them.

They are bound to use old and emotive photos to try to stir up anti-hunting feeling, but trail hunting, following a man laid scent .... it's hard to get the most virulent anti worked up about that..... what may have happened in the past with some rogue individuals is just that - in the past.

 

[cptrayes]

I can't reconcile it Skewby, which is why I don't do it any more, I go with a Drag Hunt.

If you just think about cubbing, how can you do it if what you have read distrubs you? Position loads of people around a wood that you know there are adolescent foxes in. Get them to slap their boots or make any other noise, to turn the cubs back into the copse if they try to get out. Then put a pack of hounds in.......... Please correct me if it's changed folks, but that's how the Berkeley did it 20 years ago.

If your hunt is hunting fox, not a trail, (we know it's illegal but let's be honest, it's being done) then you need to decide whether you can reconcile yourself to getting your fun courtesy of an animal's discomfort. The last fox hunt I went on I saw the fox running for its life, ears flat against its head, hounds fifty yards behind and catching up. I couldn't go again.

I have no problem with them being shot if there are too many. I just have a problem with me, (no-one else, reader, you do whatever you want), getting my own fun by chasing an animal with a pack of hounds.

Then again, I'm lucky, I have two drag packs and a bloodhound pack to choose from within travel distance. You might not have that option.

 

[combat_claire]

You have to make your mind up, anti-hunting websites are very skilled at using images taken abroad or road traffic victims to say 'look what those evil hunting types do'. A notorious picture of digging out turned out to be filmed in America.

There was also a big claim that hunts pre-ban were breeding foxes to hunt, we don't need to, foxes can breed all by themselves. The major 'evidence' for this was a photograph supposedly taken in Sinnington country of caged fox cubs. The fox cubs were then supposedly released for being in poor condition. There were never any photos of hunt members near the cage and lets face it if you were going to breed foxes to hunt, you'd keep them in tip top condition. The evidence suggests that the reasons no member of hunt staff were seen visiting was that they didn't know they were there!

Thirdly there was the case of Copper the Fox, who was being hunted, found his way blocked by saboteurs and went to ground in a rabbit hole which was too small to get all of him in. This fox was later smuggled out up a sab's jumper and presented as evidence that hunting produced shock and stress for the hunted animal. The major flaw being that forced into a burrow, sat on by a sab and then carried in a human jumper is not typical of a hunting day and can hardly be relied on as a scientific study.

If the anti-hunting brigade has to falsify evidence on three very large planks in their argument - that of hunting not being necessary for pest control, cruelty to hunted animal and terrierwork, does that not make you wonder just what else they are making up on their websites??

One thing that the anti-hunting opponents have not truly managed to grasp is that fox populations will still be controlled whether hunting makes a return or not. Hunts may now be restricted to legal methods, which incidentally CPtrayes they are doing their utmost to abide by as the handful of cases successfully prosecuted shows; but landowners will simply shoot more foxes or use un-regulated terriermen. At the present time every hunt terrierman or countryman has to be registered with the MFHA and work to a strict code of conduct. If they break these then disciplinary measures can and will be taken.

On the flip side hunting has many benefits for farming, the environment and the local community. Prof Roger Scruton has written extensively on social cohesion created within hunting; it is no secret that the fallen stock scheme provides the cheapest form of compliance with the animal-by products regs and that hunting and shooting people plant more hedges and woodland than any other group in the UK, with significant benefits for species other than the quarry.

I can only reiterate what other posters have said in that only you can make your mind up. If you see things you dislike, that cannot have an explanation then give up hunting when the ban is overturned.

 

[combat_claire]

Cptrayes, do you really think that drag hunting as a sport will survive if the next election provides an unfavourable result and hunting disappears for ever?? It is a fact that many drag hunts exist on the back of quarry hunts. Some kennel with these packs and rely on this reduction in costs to keep going, our local MFH even clears country with the landowners to keep the drag going because the masters of the drag hounds do not have the time, inclination or connections to complete this work themselves. What do drag hunts provide the landowner with? Nothing there is no fallen stock collection, no legal pest control in any way, shape or form but the horses still create damage to the land.

Autumn hunting has changed due to the ban, many packs now flush to a bird of prey or a gun which is allowed. Pre-Ban autumn hunting was always a job of work - the secretive early morning slaughter was a load of bollocks written up by an imaginative PR department. The fact is that juvenile cubs who are independent of their families are dispersed from woodland and one or two older foxes would be culled. There would have been no point in slaughtering everything in sight as the hunt would have folded by early December! Population management not population extermination. As for the secretive early mornings, it is far too hot later in the day in August to be riding about in thick tweed and pretty pointless as the scent was non-existent. Yet another lie perpetuated by the anti-hunting lobby.

Interestingly you claim that everyone knows hunts are breaking the law. I ask where your evidence is of this? There are over 300 packs of hounds going out on average twice a week for about 30 weeks of the year making approximately 18,000 hunting days a year. That makes over 80,000 hunting days since the ban, yet in that period we have seen 8 prosecutions of hunts - I don't count the poaching convictions under the Act. Of the 8 prosecutions (Percy, Ullswater, Isle of Wight, Heythrop, Exmoor, Minehead Harriers, Quantock Staghounds, D & S Staghounds) - of these 5 were thrown out through lack of evidence, The Exmoor was overturned on appeal. The Quantocks believed they were abiding by the two hound exemption but were found guilty and the Harriers wrongly believed that hunting a mangy fox could be exempt. This equates to 0.0025% of hunts being found illegally hunting. Suggests to me that given how many monitors are out harrassing hunts, finding no evidence of illegal hunting suggests that they are either crap at their work or hunts are largely obeying the law.

To me hunting with hounds will be the most effective and humane method, there was only ever one outcome - a quick death or a clean get away. I'm not sure the fox that was seen with its jaw shot off or indeed the one limping around with a missing front leg will agree that shooting is not a problem! The fact that I enjoy riding across country and following hounds does not detract from the fact that hunting is the management method of choice.

 

[RunToEarth]

I will comment on how worrying it is that not even the field out hunting seeming understand the law, or the sport.

 

[combat_claire]

You can't really blame them, when not even the judiciary fully understand the law and its implications. How can you even begin to determine the intent of someone to break the law???

I hunt with three different types of hounds under the Hunting Act 2004 and I am always getting out my Hunting Handbook at the start of their respective seasons for a salient explanation of the main points of the act.

 

[zefragile]

Nothing there is no fallen stock collection, no legal pest control in any way, shape or form but the horses still create damage to the land.

I think cptrayes hunts with the Cheshire Farmers who I believe do collect fallen stock.

 

[combat_claire]

That is fair enough, but I would guess they are in the minority of drag packs.

 

[Maesfen]

Nothing there is no fallen stock collection, no legal pest control in any way, shape or form but the horses still create damage to the land.

I think cptrayes hunts with the Cheshire Farmers who I believe do collect fallen stock.

Forgive me if I'm wrong but I was under the impression there isn't a Cheshire Farmers' pack of hounds; I'll certainly take it back if I'm wrong but in Cheshire there are -
The Cheshire Hounds (fox)
The Cheshire Forest Hounds (fox)
The North East Cheshire Draghounds
The Vale Royal Bloodhounds who hunt in Cheshire, Wynnstay, North Shropshire and North Staff's countries.
The Royal Rock Beagles
The Cheshire Beagles.
The Wynnstay (fox) also hunt part of Cheshire.

That's it as far as my old brain goes so are they a new pack, which type and where are they based? (sorry, supposed I should have asked cptrayes but you were the one to mention them so you drew the short straw, lol!).

 

[zefragile]

They are a drag pack, based in Wilmslow.

 

[Maesfen]

Aah, thank you! Slapped wrist for me then though my excuse is it's up the other end of the county so we'd never encounter them! I'll keep it shut in future, lol.

 

[zefragile]

Haha, no probs!

 

[BigBird146]

Cptrayes, do you really think that drag hunting as a sport will survive if the next election provides an unfavourable result and hunting disappears for ever?? It is a fact that many drag hunts exist on the back of quarry hunts. Some kennel with these packs and rely on this reduction'
Cheshire Farmers & NECD hunt were both around well before the ban actually.

 

[RunToEarth]

You can't really blame them, when not even the judiciary fully understand the law and its implications. How can you even begin to determine the intent of someone to break the law???

I hunt with three different types of hounds under the Hunting Act 2004 and I am always getting out my Hunting Handbook at the start of their respective seasons for a salient explanation of the main points of the act.

Cetainly not suggesting that, I think there are VERY few people in this country that FULLY understand the hunting act, in ever its most simple of terms.
But no basic understanding. Trail hunting?

 

[combat_claire]

Where did I say they weren't?? I am looking at a scenario post-2010 where there are no quarry packs left because of a tightening of the legislation, how are those packs who have heavy reliance on kennels, country clearing and pest control services of the quarry packs going to make ends meet and continue to exist.

I have no problem with drag packs and people who go dragging, but they give little back to the countryside other than being a jolly for the riders.

 

[combat_claire]

Hmmm okay that is a little bit dim, if they can't grasp that basic idea then we're doomed, Captain Mannering, doomed, doomed.....

 

[RunToEarth]

I don't really like coming into loggerheads with you CC, because you seem out to have an argument, and the way this day is progressing, I think it's best you don't lure me into one.
In a perfect world, we would all be hunting the we used to, but in the public eye we aren't.
I think it would do for fields to know what type of hunt they are on, so when some little oik in the office tries to make you feel like a criminal, you have a dignified response.

 

[Paris1]

On a different note isn't that bullying at work?

I would not be happy being sent something like that at work.

 

[cptrayes]

Cptrayes, do you really think that drag hunting as a sport will survive if the next election provides an unfavourable result and hunting disappears for ever??.

Ummmm...... since two of the packs that I have hunted with have co-existed with fox packs for decades and the one that I now subscribe to began years before the ban and all are self-financing in complete independence of fox hunts .......errr..... call me stupid if you like, but ....... well....... yes, I do.

 

[cptrayes]

You can't really blame them, when not even the judiciary fully understand the law and its implications. How can you even begin to determine the intent of someone to break the law???

Intent to break the law is unfortunately not relevant. You are guilty if you break the law whether you intended to, didn't intend to, or were completely ignorant that you were breaking the law. That's the law.

And we can't pick and choose what laws we intend to stick by and which we don't. There are plenty of people in this country who think paedophilia is harmless and should be legal. Whilst I accept this is an extreme example, if people are allowed to pick and choose which laws to ignore and which to stick by, the whole of society would break down.

The hunting law is a badly conceived law, but it does need to be repealed and not ignored. You have a continuing fight on your hands I'm afraid.


PS on a separate note, yes my drag picks up fallen stock. If you think that your hunt offers a "service" to farmers by killing foxes don't make me laugh. One of the key arguments of the anti-hunting lobby was how few foxes were actually caught. Another was how foxes thrive in hunted areas. And any farmer who wants his foxes killed without any damage to his land or fences simply calls in a couple of the multitude of people queueing up to be allowed to shoot them! Farmers let you on their land for the same reasons exactly as they let us - we collect their fallen stock and they love to see riders and hounds enjoying themselves in the country.

 

[RunToEarth]

I never really understood where drag hunting came from.
I mean, was it for the love of hounds working- and if so why not just hunt quarry?
Or was it for a little bit of a free for all around the countryside?
I have been out with a drag pack before, but I fondly recall my friend comparing it to her rampant rabbit- it's all very well and good, but it anyone's ideal world, who the hell would ever have need or use for one?

 

[spacefaer]

PMSL - fab Rosiie - couldn't have put it better myself

good question too - what is the origin of drag hunting - bit of a bastard son of the original surely?

 

[Starbucks]

Guys - lots of bickering again.

I don't see why OP is in the wrong for questioning her beliefs. I do! I'm not into some arrears of hunting (i.e. terrier work) but I'm not going to stop people from doing it.

 

[tootsietoo]

That is the best way of describing the difference between draghunting and foxhunting that I have ever heard

 

[cptrayes]

"If you think that your hunt offers a "service" to farmers by killing foxes don't make me laugh."
when we killed 99 brace above ground and another 83 brace with terriers between 1 aug and 12 mar
is that not a service , drag hunts dont do anythin for farmers and i would suggest you are biased against fox hunting

Couldn't care less about fox hunting myself. Your hunt is unusual in the number it kills but it doesn't take away from the fact that, around here at least, there are shooters queueing up to provide the same service with no damage to the ground or fences whatsoever.

Why do you think riders are needed anyway? A foot pack would do the same job!

We do the same irreplaceable service as you do -pick up fallen stock.

Bias? not from me, but I sense plenty from you!

 

[cptrayes]

Why do a minority of fox hunters have such a problem with the idea that some of us may fox hunt and drag hunt for the pure thrill of riding horses across country that we cannot get access to any other way?

Can we not just accept that we have two completely different sports which look superficially similar?

Or does is so bug the hell out of "pure" fox hunters that a substantial proportion of their field are perfectly happy to be allowed to hunt following a trail with no fox involved that you cannot let it rest without trying to tell the rest of us that we are wrong in enjoying what we enjoy?