Fox Hunting - An Easy Target for the Hypocrites? (Foxhunting - is this sport?)

Member Name: windwhisperer

Product:	Foxhunting - is this sport?
Date:	29/01/09 (63 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Not everything is always as it first appears

Disadvantages: Denial is a human condition

I knew I should never have wandered into Speakers Corner ...

Firstly I must clarify - I've never been foxhunting, but I have for quite a number of years now lived in rural locations within the British Isles, and I don't think any would argue that my lifestyle is pretty 'basic,' so I don't have much to associate myself with the upper classes.

But I am constantly struck by the hypocrisy associated with the subject of foxhunting and after many years of coming across such outbursts feel it's time to give people food for thought.

Firstly, lets get the myth out of the way that foxes eat livestock to survive - they don't. In fact, the areas worst hit by fox attacks are usually populated by rabbits (and zillions of them) Foxes do kill for fun. Don't believe me? Well watch a ratting terrier at work and then tell me that animals only kill to survive. The same thing basically happens when a fox gets into a compound with birds. He will kill them all and, perhaps, maybe, take one.
So you may think that is the bird he is going to eat ... not so I'm afraid. Nine times out of ten you can track the fox, basically due to the trail of feathers it leaves. The fox will part bury the bird in loose soil or leaves and that is it. You can go back months later, the bird will still be there. So Mr Fox wasn't that hungry after all ...

So where you may think, does my statement about hypocrisy come in?

Well, I think the main objection to fox hunting, is that it is performed by people looking to enjoy themselves, have a day out and a damn good time - yes? It is this reversion to base, antiquated human mentality of inflicting suffering on another creature unable to defend itself, that really stirs our guts.

So, next Christmas, when you are all sat around that turkey - you know the one - the one that has been reared in a shed, never seen daylight until it was picked up by a leg, wing or neck, chucked into a lorry with hundreds of other birds and transported, terrified, to be hung by its legs, stunned (if it's lucky) and had its throat cut, so you could sit around in your party hats, popping poppers, and telling jokes and stuffing yourself until you can't get off the couch to wash the pots and chuck the carcass remnants in the bin - are you really bothered ... really????

Okay, some of you are, but most, the vast majority, are going to go down the 'traditional,' 'cheap (we can't afford free range)' 'they're only birds they can't feel anything,' 'we're entitled to it' route.

Please tell me though, what makes you any better/worse than the fox hunters - oh, don't tell me, you're eating your 'kill,' - but you don't really need to, now do you? Come 1st January you will all be taking New Year resolutions to diet.

I hope that at least some of you out there don't hit the 'automatically offended' button and try and digest some of the things I've said. I'm certainly not a 'fox hater' and have rescued more animals than most of you have had hot dinners, but think on it this way:
If all the intensive units disappeared tomorrow, chickens, ducks, turkeys, geese - if they all went and you did have to rely on getting free range birds to access poultry - how would you really feel about fox controls if the farmer turned round to you and said you couldn't have any bird related products (including eggs) for the next year because foxes had killed all his stock?

I'm not saying one opinion is right and one is wrong - just that for the majority of the time it's a case of 'people who live in glass houses ...'

Summary: We need to get our own house in order first