No it is not a sport. Sport is admirable. (Foxhunting - is this sport?)

Member Name: josollsam

Product:	Foxhunting - is this sport?
Date:	16/03/03 (629 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None

Disadvantages: Shows one of humans worst sides

I accept that alternatives to fox hunting to cull foxes can be as awful a death as is the whole foxhunting experience. If not carried out properly. Fox hunters, rightly so, point out that traps cause extreme pain and it has been noted that foxes will bite away at their legs till they come off to try to get out of them. Foxes that get shot but are not killed may end up in agony for a long time before they finally pass away and foxes that are poisoned can suffer unbelievably from being eaten away at from the inside. All horrible deaths.

This doesn?t suddenly make fox hunting the least cruel of all, though. If this is the argument for fox hunting then it isn?t a very good one.

If foxes ARE to be culled then why not employ people who are dab hands at shooting without missing, why not employ people to regularly check the traps set out to avoid foxes having long periods where they are trapped, why not ensure that enough poison is used to kill quickly.

What makes these methods any MORE cruel than terrifying it half to death by chasing it for hours across field after field, capturing it eventually and then having a flurry of fox hounds rip it to pieces.

How many foxes do hunts kill off anyway? Is the amount enough to be of a service? A lot of the foxes manage to get away, after the hunt has destroyed crops, the dogs have killed off a few farm animals and torn up peoples back gardens. Surely a lot more foxes could be killed by professional gunsmen within the hours that it takes for a bunch of silly people dressed up in fancy dress calling out ?tally ho? charging around on horses to kill one solitary fox?

During the foot and mouth crisis fox hunting was banned for a year. The fox population was completely unaffected by the lack of ?control? that the good huntsmen were offering us. Fox hunting does not in any way help to control the fox population.

Anyway, there is no need to kill foxes.

Foxes are self-regulato
ry in that if there is a scarcity of their natural foods (i.e. rabbits, mice, rats etc) they breed less to ensure that there are not too many of them.

Foxes are not the predatory vermin some would like us to believe they are at all. In fact, foxes are farmers friends. Even if some of them (a few) refuse to admit that this is the case. Foxes do not kill off untold amounts of lambs, they do take lambs that have already died of disease, cold or who were stillborn. Foxes are scared of the lambs mothers who are much larger than the fox and will protect their lambs as would any other mother. In fact, dogs are more responsible for the death rate of lambs than are foxes. It has been estimated that dogs kill up to 5,000 lambs a year.

Foxes do kill poultry. Most of the UKs poultry are kept in inhumane conditions where they never see the light of day and so are ?safe? from foxes. However, the lucky free ones have been known to become victims to the fox. This is usually because the farmer has been neglectful to his poultry enclosures by not ensuring that they are properly maintained. But if poultry farmers took a little more care in erecting fencing that is deep enough and maintained to a standard the fox would find it harder to get at them.

In fact foxes are a friend to farmers. As I previously pointed out a foxes natural food choices are rabbits, mice, rats and voles. All of which are farm pests. Rabbits alone cause around £100 million worth of damage to crops and forestry EACH YEAR. Less foxes will mean rabbits, mice and rats becoming even more of a pest than they already are.

But in any case fox hunters really should stop using any of these excuses to justify their bloodlust, for this is all it is. They are not at all interested in keeping the fox population down at all. Why do they encourage fox population growth if that were really the case? Foxes were introduced into the Isle of Wight because they had none, just so that fox hunting c
ould take place there. Artificial earths are created all over England to ensure that there are plenty of foxes around for them to hunt. They are deliberately placing foxes where there were none before. Why do that if they are trying to control numbers?

What of all the people whose livelihood depends on the hunt? It is estimated by pro-hunting organisations that 16,000 people would be out of a job if fox hunting were banned. However, independent research has shown that the actual figure is closer to 900 and most of these would not lose their jobs if fox hunting were substituted by drag hunting.

As for the dogs used, well these dogs do not naturally kill foxes and have to be trained to do so. Dogs that do not come up to scratch are put down and dogs that have been hunting for 5 or 6 seasons are then considered to old and are shot. In fact by the start of the hunting season it has been estimated that around 10,000 dogs will have been killed to make sure that only the best dogs remain.

Finally, fox hunting is an unnecessary act of cruelty that has no place in todays society. In the same way that we abhor bear baiting, bull fighting and dog fighting we should feel the same about fox hunting. Why do human beings have such a cruel streak? Why do we still allow that cruel streak to have a legitimate outlet? We don?t allow cruelty to animals?except for to foxes. Why is this? Whose money is paying to allow it to continue?

Summary: