Sooty
Well-Known Member
Following on from posts discussing the immorality or not of turning hunting into a sport, is it actually a sport? I would think it is a sport in the way that darts is a sport, ie barely. The way I understand it, hunting exists to control vermin. The hunt also provides a service to the landowners whose land it crosses by way of pest control, conservation and fallen stock disposal. To maintain these services costs money, so people are allowed to follow the hunt across land it would not normally have access to, in return for a fee. Therefore, the hunt followers are not there primarily to see a fluffy creature torn limb from limb, but to support an important part of the rural infrastructure, and to have a good day out in the process. The actual killing is overseen by hunt staff, and nobody has to witness it who doesnt want to. Try as I might, I can see nothing immoral about this situation. However, when you start encouraging foxes to breed deliberately so you have something to chase, that seems to contradict the argument that their numbers need controlling