Bring Back Fox Hunting

I am against fox hunting, but I am also against statements like

the false perspectives of some disgruntled blood thirsty morons

and double standards.

I am fairly sure fish suffer when they are caught, but, not being fluffy and Disneyfied (except for Nemo), there appears to be less (if any) of an outcry about them.

[Digital Fanatic]

Originally Posted by martyh

yes we do ,we also have the right to trap and poison foxes ,we just can't hunt them ,torture them or treat them inhumanely ,incidently the same as with rats and mice.If this was all about fox/pest control then hunting wouldn't even be an issue, after all it is the most ineficient way to kill an animal and a most efficient way to injure people ,horses and dogs

And this is the bit that makes Fox Hunting wrong. It is barbaric and should be for ever outlawed.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Hugh

I am against fox hunting, but I am also against statements like and double standards.

I am fairly sure fish suffer when they are caught, but, not being fluffy and Disneyfied (except for Nemo), there appears to be less (if any) of an outcry about them.

Agreed

BTW i dont go fishing

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by Digital Fanatic

Please explain? I'm firmly in the real world.

There is nothing wrong with compassion.

What's "fairy tale" about catching a mouse humanely and setting it free in a wild location?

Very humane to set a house mouse free in the wild, it'd be kinder to poison it rather than it be ripped apart by a rat wouldn't it, ooops I seem to have got caught up in the emotive language, lets hope it doesn't become such a habit I have to include such sayings in every post...

Originally Posted by Digital Fanatic

Please explain? I'm firmly in the real world.

There is nothing wrong with compassion.

What's "fairy tale" about catching a mouse humanely and setting it free in a wild location?

It's fairy tale because you are arbitrarily according the mouse a status that you do not accord to spiders, houseflies or the germs down your toilet, assuming you clean your toilet with bleach or similar.

The mouse is fluffy and cute and looks like the ones you see in the pet shop. It tugs at your heart strings and you react to it on that basis.

The farmer who needs to keep his yard free of rats, on the other hand, does not have the luxury of trapping them in a little perspex box and driving them, by the dozen, out into the fields to let them go. The farmer knows that they, or their descendants, will soon re-infest his farm, or one of his neighbours farms, and that killing them with lethal trapping mechanisms - or, more likely, poison - is the only practical solution to the problem. Neither of these techniques is guaranteed to be instantaneous or pain-free for the animal. In fact, I've camped close to a farm yard and listened to rats squealing after eating warfarin, so I can say for certain it's not pain-free.

[Digital Fanatic]

Originally Posted by Hugh

I am against fox hunting, but I am also against statements like and double standards.

I am fairly sure fish suffer when they are caught, but, not being fluffy and Disneyfied (except for Nemo), there appears to be less (if any) of an outcry about them.

That's a whole other argument... I think they do suffer, but many argue they don't feel pain in the same way?

But why is it a different argument - surely it should be the same argument for all creatures?

Re different pain

[Digital Fanatic]

Originally Posted by Hugh

But why is it a different argument - surely it should be the same argument for all creatures?

Re different pain

Whether they do feel pain is what I mean, Hugh. As I say I think they do.

I think because they make no sound / look of "pain" people assume they don't feel it

Originally Posted by Chris

Masque, you are making assertions and backing them up with an appeal to popularity. That is not a logical argument.

Actually Chris i would say it does .If enough people agree it is inhumane then it is said to be inhumane .I think is is agreed that foxes can be a pest it's just how we go about dealing with it .Enough people think that hunting with dogs is inhumane so it was made illegal ,isn't that how democracy works ?.

Originally Posted by martyh

yes we do ,we also have the right to trap and poison foxes ,we just can't hunt them ,torture them or treat them inhumanely ,incidently the same as with rats and mice.If this was all about fox/pest control then hunting wouldn't even be an issue, after all it is the most ineficient way to kill an animal and a most efficient way to injure people ,horses and dogs

The claim that hunting with dogs is 'inefficient' is an assertion that is frequently and loudly repeated by the anti-hunt lobby, and one which they seem to hope everyone will buy in to if they repeat it loudly and frequently enough.

It's an assertion that sadly doesn't get challenged often enough. So I think it's fair for me to re-post something I said in this thread back in March:

Originally Posted by Chris

As for 'distress', well during the whole debate over the Act, 540 members of the Royal College of Vet Surgeons signed up to the statement that:

"Hunting with hounds is the natural and most humane way of controlling the population of all four quarry species" (the quarry species being mink, deer, fox and hare).

http://www.vet-wildlifemanagement.or...d=30&Itemid=32

... so, it seems, a lot of people who have expert knowledge of the subject disagree with you.

The link is well worth reading. I would be very grateful if some of the people who have been so passionate to assert that hunting with dogs is 'inefficient' and 'unnatural' and 'inhuman' could give a thoughtful, reasoned response to the expert opinion it contains.

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by martyh

Enough people think that hunting with dogs is inhumane so it was made illegal ,isn't that how democracy works ?.

Absolutely, that's why we left Europe and have capital punishment back...

[Digital Fanatic]

Originally Posted by Chris

It's fairy tale because you are arbitrarily according the mouse a status that you do not accord to spiders, houseflies or the germs down your toilet, assuming you clean your toilet with bleach or similar.

The mouse is fluffy and cute and looks like the ones you see in the pet shop. It tugs at your heart strings and you react to it on that basis.

The farmer who needs to keep his yard free of rats, on the other hand, does not have the luxury of trapping them in a little perspex box and driving them, by the dozen, out into the fields to let them go. The farmer knows that they, or their descendants, will soon re-infest his farm, or one of his neighbours farms, and that killing them with lethal trapping mechanisms - or, more likely, poison - is the only practical solution to the problem. Neither of these techniques is guaranteed to be instantaneous or pain-free for the animal. In fact, I've camped close to a farm yard and listened to rats squealing after eating warfarin, so I can say for certain it's not pain-free.

You are being a little patronising there, Chris.

Rats are a real problem for farmers and yes it would be totally impractical to catch are release each one remotely.

I think there needs to be more research in to better ways of dealing with such infestations.

I don't personally have the answer to that, but riding on horse-back with hounds would do no good

Originally Posted by martyh

Actually Chris i would say it does .If enough people agree it is inhumane then it is said to be inhumane .I think is is agreed that foxes can be a pest it's just how we go about dealing with it .Enough people think that hunting with dogs is inhumane so it was made illegal ,isn't that how democracy works ?.

Not really - we don't just live in a democracy. We live in a modern Western liberal democracy. That means politicians are not supposed go around using their five-year lease on power to make wholesale, mandatory changes on the lifestyles of citizens. Criminalizing a widely enjoyed and historic pastime was counter to almost every convention and tradition of our Parliament, which is why it took such a vast amount of Parliamentary time to get it into law.

Further to that, my objection to the word 'inhumane' is that it is too often bandied about, to the point that its force and currency has been devalued. The human race is far larger than the electorate of the United Kingdom. I think it's fair for people to campaign on issues of acceptability or unacceptability within our society, but what is human, or inhuman, really should be reserved for bigger, global issues.

[Flyboy]

Originally Posted by Chris

It's accurate to the extent that it's consistent with your tedious, left-wing urban agenda. No further.

LOL. Urban...you really don't read my posts, do you? Why do I have to be left-wing about this? This subject cover the whole political spectrum. There are many right-wing posters on here who detest the idea of running an innocent animal to exhaustion just to revel over its mutilation.

Originally Posted by Digital Fanatic

You are being a little patronising there, Chris.

Rats are a real problem for farmers and yes it would be totally impractical to catch are release each one remotely.

I think there needs to be more research in to better ways of dealing with such infestations.

I don't personally have the answer to that, but riding on horse-back with hounds would do no good

I'm not being patronising - I'm pointing out a logical inconsistency in your position. You accept that trapping and releasing farmyard rats is impractical, but that simply underlines the inconsistency in your argument. How do you balance your compassion for animals feeling pain with that impracticality?

---------- Post added at 17:47 ---------- Previous post was at 17:42 ----------

Originally Posted by Flyboy

LOL. Urban...you really don't read my posts, do you? Why do I have to be left-wing about this? This subject cover the whole political spectrum. There are many right-wing posters on here who detest the idea of running an innocent animal to exhaustion just to revel over its mutilation.

I do read the other posts on here, and that's why I am aware of your scarcely concealed joy at getting one over on those you perceive to be from the upper classes. Please don't try to use the political sympathies of other anti-hunt posters in this thread as a fig leaf to disguise your personal prejudice.

Re 'innocent': please give more detail on your understanding of the concepts of guilt and innocence as applied to non-human species.