BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: kendall
Date: 20 Feb 05 - 08:47 PM

I'm curious, why is fox hunting not banned in Scotland?

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: kendall
Date: 20 Feb 05 - 08:48 PM

Or in Northern Ireland?

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 01:08 AM

In Scotland in brings in a lot of income doesn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: GUEST,The Shambles
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 02:17 AM

A quick look at all the work of many bodies and other legislation set-up to prevent needless cruelty - would have clearly indicated to the few who do enjoy inflicting thise needless cruelty - that it was not generally thought to be an acceptable practice or in line with the direction that is generally thought to reflect a civilised society.

In this case the really sad thing was being forced to HAVE to introduce this law. For those few who thought (and still think) that inflicting cruelty for their pleasure - did not look like they were ever going to volunteer to stop. In fact - in the face of general concern - they became more determined to cloud the issue in order to carry on. Even to the extent of spending vast sums of money to use the law of the land - (they hold in contempt) - and say they will ignore.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 02:37 AM

I think the attraction is the warm blood of the hunted animal.


There is something primeval about riding fast across country chasing a prey until it is pulled apart and then smearing its blood on a child. The child is initiated into the sport. The thrill never leaves the child.

Otis Ferry probably started out in this fashion.


No-one seems to mention blood lust when defending hunting but that is what it is all about.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: GUEST,The Shambles
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 03:21 AM

What is fueling this for many - is the irony of seeing certain sections of our community struggling when the law is not to their liking and who now talk about breaking it.

It is ironic to see many of those who have thought that sitting in judgement, imposing their views and the law upon others was their preserve - now arguing that the judgement of the law should not be applied to them. Perhaps now - the 'good old' double-standard that this country has championed to the world for so long - can be finally confined to the past?

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 03:45 AM

It is a tradition here to disobey laws that are held to be unjust and unfair, and to accept the consequences of that disobedience.
Think of the suffragettes and the poll tax rebels.
We are ruled and policed by consent.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 04:11 AM

I see that the guest who doesn't give a rat's ass {is that legal?] seems somewhat put out to learn that some hunts leave the horses at home.
Kendall:- Hunting with a pack of dogs is banned in Scotland and has been for about a year. They get round it the same way as some of the English packs are now doing by having a couple of guys riding quad bikes, and armed with shotguns, following the hunt. They are there to despatch the fox if it is cornered, to stop the dogs killing it, and breaking the law. We have our on parliament in Scotland now, and while it is hamstrung as to what legislation it can touch, we can still make our own laws on certain things. The anomoly in the UK is that Scots law is different to English, and this goes back to the union of the crowns under James VI and I, where Scottish law was ruled as untouchable by the English parliament. All subsequent laws passeby a UK parliament apply in Scotland, but where they clash with existing Scots law the old law takes precedence.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: Gervase
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 04:19 AM

Guest seems to have picked up his perception of hunting from some pre-war treatise. Blooding a novice hunter hasn't been done for nearly half a century.
It probaby doesn't matter a whit, though, because the whole issue - pro and anti - is based on misconceptions and prejudice. The antis seem to divide into those who are genuinely convinced that fox-hunting is cruel and therefore incompatible with civilised values, and those who see the fight for a ban as a skirmish in the class war (with some cross-over between the two values). The pro-hunt lobby seems to be divided between the libertarians who see the UK as prey to too many restrictive laws and see liberty being eroded, and those who see hunting as a battlefield in a struggle between urban and rural values.
That doesn't stop rural people being passionately anti-hunting or urban types being pro-hunting (when I was a child in London I used to go beagling in Oxforshire regularly, which is one of the reasons my knees are knackered now!). What it does mean is that the passion and prejudice on both sides makes reasoned debate nigh impossible.
Having hunted myself, I am pro-hunting, although I accept that many hunts - particularly those near to London - have more than their share of tossers and wankers who have taken up the sport because they think it'll give them the trappings of gentility (you don't see many of them hunting with the fell packs or my local hunt in West Wales though!).
I also accept and respect the right of others to disagree with hunting, as with shooting and fishing.
What I don't accept is for those who disagree to have the right to shout down, intimidate and threaten people (and I have been on the receiving end of that sort of behaviour).
As for the notion of 'the voice of the people', without debating Rousseau at length, I don't believe that the ban truly represents the general will. Were we always to heed the vox populis, as has been claimed for the current ban, we would probably still have public executions in the UK, along with enforced castration, the odd lynching and enforced deportation of asylum seekers.
The debate on fox hunting has been far from civilised and it is not yet over.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: GUEST,The Shambles
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 06:52 AM

The debate on fox hunting has been far from civilised and it is not yet over.

Perhaps not but the pro-'tearing foxes to pieces with hounds for fun' lobby be will now be forced to honestly debate the issue.

The debate will now move to a position where those few who wish to inflict needless cluelty for their sporting pleasure will have to convince the country (and the country's law-makers) of the need to introduce legislation to enable these few to indulge in their strange preference.

In the meantime - it looks as if those who wish to meet-up and ride together will continue to so - but without the need to see dogs terrify and rip another animal to pieces.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: greg stephens
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 07:22 AM

Laura, you can still go rabbitting with dogs,it is only if you do it to mice or hares that you are in trouble. But you can still hunt rats. The Shambles and GUEST still keep stating that this law is about cruelty, but I wish one of them would explain why it is cruel to rip a fox apart with dogs, but perfectly OK wth a rabbit. And of course you can blast off at either with a shotgun whenever you like.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: John O'L
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 07:53 AM

Gervase -

There are many here who are unable to understand how a well-adjusted rational person (as you seem to be) can enjoy such a sport.
What is it about the hunt that you find attractive?

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 08:00 AM

It's not just the ripping of the fox apart that's cruel - in fact that last act is parhaps the least cruel part of the whole sickening process because it's over, and the victim despatched to oblivion, relatively quickly. The cruellest part is surely the chase - with an animal that's terrified out of its wits being pursued to exhaustion by a horde fired by the basest human instinct, blood-lust.

Maybe if a few of the Toffs and Hooray Henrys (along with all those others from the lower orders who make themselves feel important by associating with them) were put into a situation where roles were reversed, they might see the world from behind a different set of blinkers?

And if it's OK to hunt foxes with packs of dogs, why isn't it OK for me to pit my Staffie against another? (OK, he's been dead a long time now, but you know what I mean!). Presumably the Yoicks Tally-Ho mob would regard dog-fighting (which involves two reasonably evenly-matched animals) as barbaric. Why? I'm not saying it's right, just that it can't be any wronger than hunting - that's to say ABSOLUTELY wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: greg stephens
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 08:19 AM

So why arent we banning rabbit hunting? Or battery farming? Presumably, because practitioners dont wear red coats. Not a very rational basis for constructing the law of the land.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 09:02 AM

Perhaps we might compromise, and outlaw hunting animals, but declare open season on politicians, and tabloid journalists (Grins).


You left out lawyers...

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: Crystal
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 09:14 AM

>if it's OK to hunt foxes with packs of dogs, why isn't it OK for me to pit my Staffie against another? (OK, he's been dead a long time now, but you know what I mean!)<

Fine by me, there is no reason to stop you and it saves shooting dangerous dogs!

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: GUEST,*Laura*
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 09:24 AM

Greg - people are only allowed to hunt rabbits on their own land, or with specific permission from the landowner.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: kendall
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 10:33 AM

I used to be a hunter; in fact I lived for deer season and got turned on by the odor of powder solvent and gun oil. But, the last deer I killed, she didn't die quickly and when I approached her, she looked at me as if to say "Why are you doing this"? I sold my gun and have not hunted since.
I figure I have evolved.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: GUEST,The Shambles
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 10:34 AM

The Shambles and GUEST still keep stating that this law is about cruelty, but I wish one of them would explain why it is cruel to rip a fox apart with dogs, but perfectly OK wth a rabbit.

I am not sure that I have stated that this LAW is about cruelty - or indeed about preventing cruelty. What I have said is that those who continue to produce the same old 'red herrings' and comparisons - are defending the practice of a few people who may think that inflicting needless cruelty on any animal (or human for that matter) for the fun of their sport is acceptable.

Perhaps someone would explain why they would wish to churn out the same old rubbish - in order to 'muddy the waters' to support and defend the continuation of this particular cruel practice?

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 12:25 PM

Kendall, the same thing happened to me when i was a boy and shot a blackbird with an air pistol. When i got to it I had to shoot it three more times. I've never shot or hunted since and am implacably opposed to those who do. Evolution indeed.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 12:44 PM

Since when did a Staffordshire Bull Terrier become a dangerous dog Crystal? I would be happier to leave a 'Staffie' to look after my kids than I would, a Border Collie, a Jack Russell Terrier or a German Shepherd dog, or many other breeds for that matter!
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: Ebbie
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 03:46 PM

There must be something to that, Kendall. My brother in law had the same experience. He said the doe looked at him with a very clear message. He never hunted again either.

Maybe it's just the big brown eyes. Or maybe we are more sensitive to some animals' psyches than others.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 04:38 PM

Thanks Giok, you are so, so right. Staffies are no more dangerous than any other dog, indeed they're considerably less unpredictable (or should that be considerably more predictable??) than some other breeds. I was brought up with them, and so were my kids, and I never had any reason to fear them. It's unfortunate for them that they have this 'hard' image that attracts the dickhead owners who train them to be overly aggressive. Every dog has the instinct to be aggressive in certain circumstances, and every dog can be trained to be vicious, just as every dog can be trained to be gentle. In forty years of living with and around Staffies which were reared with love, I found them always to be faithful and gentle animals, devoted and fine companions (as did my widowed mother who loved her last Staffie as though he was her child).

As with all dogs, treat them well and they're fine, treat them badly and they become a handful. There's no such thing as a bad dog, just bad owners.

Sorry about the thread creep but I get pissed off by people who believe blindly the drivel they read in the gutter press, and spout it off as truth. How many Staffies have you owned Crystal?

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 04:53 PM

And in case you're wondering, no I would never put my dog to fight another - it's a barbaric notion, I was just making a point.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: GUEST,*Laura* (can't log on for some reason)
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 05:00 PM

Just out of curiosity - if a rat had looked at you in the same way would it have had the same effect?

xLx

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: GUEST,Doggie poet
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 05:08 PM

My long nosed, long tailed terrier,
Best fighting dog on earth.
Much longer than the average dog,
And greater round the girth.

My long nosed, long tailed terrier,
Not had a fight for a while.
Other dogs won't fight him,
Cause he's a crocodile.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: DougR
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 07:30 PM

Is it true that 250,000 turned out in GB over the weekend to protest the law? That's what CNN reported yesterday.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 01:46 AM

Not sure that this is true or if it is - that this is really news. As all over the country - a lot more than 250,000 people went to watch football, went shopping or did many other useful things.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: greg stephens
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 02:55 AM

I shot a swallow with an air rifle as a child, and like other correspondents here it so disgusted me I've never shot anything since. It was a quite revolting experience and made me very ashamed.
    However, that experience did not fill me witrh a self-righteous desire to pass laws in favour of gassing foxes; or hunting rabbits and rats, but not foxes, with dogs. Obviously, the same experience can affect different people in different ways.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: Gervase
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 05:22 AM

I think many boys experience something similar – plinking at cardboard targets or tin cans with an air gun eventually palls. They know of the destructive power of a gun and have seen it in a sanitised version thousands of times on the screen, so they want to try it out in real life.
A bird is shot, and then there is an immediate feeling of remorse, disgust and guilt; all the stronger because that creature's probable suffering and death is pointless yet completely irreversible. For many youngsters that is their first experience of the messy finality of death and it has an enduring effect.
It endures among those who hunt, shoot and fish as well – or I believe it should. These days I only shoot what I or my friends are prepared to eat, be it pheasant, rabbit, deer, pigeon or goose. Every time that irreversible act is done, and a living, sentient creature crumples in a mass of meat, fur or feather, there is a moment of remorse. Who am I to take the life of another creature – a thing of miraculous beauty which until moments ago was sharing the air that I breathe, whose heart was pumping and whose senses were probably registering far more than mine?
And yet I do, and I know many others who feel similarly – who kill and yet do so with a curious mix of feelings; who feel the elation of the chase or the sheer exhaustion of the hill-stalk, the satisfaction of the combination of science and skill that results in the kill and yet who look at their quarry with respect.
I do it because I eat meat, and because I believe we need to respect the creatures that provide us with that meat. For the same reason that I will only eat free-range chicken, beef and pork, I would rather eat a creature that has had a free and natural life and whose end seems to me to be a part of the cycle of nature; of the link between predator and quarry that defines the roles of so many species. The fact that I do this with a gun rather than with a spear, with a trap or with tooth and nail is simply a measure of the fact that homo sapiens as a species has almost uniquely evolved as a tool user.

Yet, of course, that is only one part of the argument. No-one eats the fox that is killed by the hounds or, now, shot by the huntsman. But there, too, there is something of the same feelings engendered by hunting for the pot, with the added edge that here there is risk involved. Few would argue that in the UK, with its artificial countryside, 'nature' can go her way in some prelapsarian state.
Consider. We think nothing of grubbing out weeds from our fields and gardens, of eliminating parasites from our livestock and of destroying rats, mice, flies, ants, wasps, cockroaches or other vermin that cross that threshold between the 'wild places' and our own. Yet each of these is an organism evolved over millions of years with a singular gift (which we share) of exploiting opportunities to help its kind increase. Yet we destroy them because they are 'inconvenient' or destructive or economically threatening. Most of the time we destroy them without a second thought; it is part an parcel of maintaining the balance between us and nature.
Yet that same balance has to be maintained with other creatures as well – creatures with big brown eyes who dressed up and spoke in our storybooks as children. Deer, those gentle bambis, need to have their populations managed lest we face either a desertification of our woodland habitats or acquiesce in the regular starvation of older or weaker specimens. So we cull them with guns.
And the fox – wily old Charlie, Reynardine or whatever you wish to call it. In an unmanaged world without sheep, poultry, gamebirds, domestic rubbish bins and all the other tweaks that we have added to nature, the fox population would regulate itself admirably. But when we enter the equation things get skewed. Foxes thrive on our plenty; our chicken runs become irresistible, our rubbish a source of convenience food and our game coverts a ready larder.
So we regard an unchecked fox population as unacceptable. What do we do about it? There is shooting which, done properly, is effective. But shooting isn't simple. It means using a rifle that is difficult to acquire in our gun-fearing society, and it means long nights spent waiting with lamp and gun for the fox to offer a clear target – nights when most farmers I know are grabbing what little sleep they can get (particularly at the moment, when lambing is turning many of my friends into sleep-deprived zombies!)
Then there is poison. Dose a piece of carrion with something lethal and you could well put paid to a fox and its litter, but you would also wipe out badgers, buzzards, kites and many other species, so say nothing of the secondary effects of such lethal chemicals leaching into the soil to affect other organisms.
Or there's snaring. A fox runs into a wire noose laid the previous night and slowly throttles itself, writhing and thrashing so much in its efforts to escape that it will sometimes break its own bones (supposing that a cat didn't find the snare first), to be found in a grotesque rictus the following morning.
Or there is another option. Like the falconer who uses the skills of another beast to his own end, we can use dogs. They can find and flush a fox in daylight, and they have the stamina to run it down, and they have the strength to kill it extremely quickly.
It was a technique that developed maybe half a millennium ago, and it has gone on to become a sport because there are people who enjoy the thrill of seeing a pack of hounds, moving almost as one, quarter and turn through field and coverts, using senses so much more refined than ours, to track the fox. It can take some time, with false starts and frustrations, before the fox goes from first scent to full view, and that is when the chase begins – that scene that we think we know so well.
The hounds will invariably pursue the fox for as long as it takes to bring it down; that is their instinct, honed by selective breeding. The death takes just a moment, yet many professional huntsmen will acknowledge that in that moment they feel the same feelings I have described earlier because they respect their quarry.
The huntsman and his assistants are among the few likely to be there when the fox is killed. Following them will be the field of other rides. These are the majority, and they are there for a number of reasons. Foremost is the exhilaration of riding pell mell across country with all the risks that entails. They aren't following defined tracks in an orderly trot – this is a chance to enjoy riding at its rawest. There are others who follow for the thrill of seeing the dogs work and for whom the movements of the pack are as fascinating as a game of furry, steaming chess. There will inevitably be a few who have come because they think this will give them an entrée to some privileged world, but they will probably go home – cold, stiff and sore – at the end of the day and wonder why on earth they came.
I can imagine that not one person is there, however, to exult in the death of the fox, or for the experience of seeing it killed. Very few people who hunt actually see the kill – it happens in an instant when the leading hounds catch the fox. For most the first they know is a note on the horn and the sight of a milling pack of dogs ahead suddenly coming to a halt.
But everyone who hunts does it because they enjoy it. For many in the modern world, it provides an atavistic chance to connect – to connect with one species hunting another and to connect with a sense of risk and exhilaration that is largely absent today.
To end a rather long post, I cannot see anything to be ashamed of in that, and I see the death of the fox in the chase as a natural thing. For all these reasons I find it sad that hunting has been outlawed. For me it is the severance of one more thread that binds us to a world we increasingly disrespect and exploit.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: kendall
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 07:51 AM

I've said my piece, and I stand by it.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: John O'L
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 08:30 AM

Gervase -

Did you read that before you posted?
Where do I start?

Obviously the feeling of elation/exhaustion/satisfaction outweighs the feeling of remorse/respect.

You prefer to kill & eat animals that have had a free & happy life than ones that have not. I don't see the relevance, but OK, fair enough, life requires death, go ahead.

"...the cycle of nature; of the link between predator and quarry..."
This is not descriptive of a fox hunt, and besides, calling something natural is not the same as calling it good, or even acceptable. Where I live (rural Australia) Mother Nature is often referred to as "The Crusty Old Bitch".
Tsunamis are natural. Fox hunts are not.

The notion that fox hunting is simply the performance of a civic duty I won't dignify with a response.

"The death takes just a moment"
All death takes just a moment. It's the pain & suffering that goes with it which many people would like to see reduced, rather than celebrated.

"...a game of furry, steaming chess..." Serious? Come on...
I think those who hunt for the sake of witnessing a game of furry steaming chess could almost be sidelined, couldn't they? I doubt we would hear much of an outcry from the furry steaming chess watchers' lobby.

"I can imagine that not one person is there, however, to exult in the death of the fox, or for the experience of seeing it killed."
Well I wonder how the fox would feel about that. The final degradation. After all it's been put through, and for what?

"For many in the modern world, it provides an atavistic chance to connect – to connect with one species hunting another and to connect with a sense of risk and exhilaration that is largely absent today."
Why do we need the connection of one species hunting another? Who benefits? I don't think the hunted species gets much out of it, but more to the point, what does the hunter get out of it? Risk and exhilaration can be found anywhere. Get a surfboard. The only thing hunting provides is the opportunity to kill.

Perhaps you're right. Perhaps we do need it.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: Gervase
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 11:01 AM

John,
You asked for my views on hunting and that's what you got. I wrote down what I thought and no, I didn't read it through before posting. I wonder, though, how closely you read it before replying.
The problem is, we see different worlds through different eyes. I don't know how many foxhunts you've seen, but clearly your experience has been vastly different from mine. For a great many hunters, the point of it is the fun - the fun of seeing the hounds work, of getting closer to the Crusty Old Bitch.
As for how the fox feels; I imagine it feels very much like the rabbit, the hare, the partridge or the mouse feels when it dies. As far as I know, we humans are reckoned to be the only creatures who actually know we're going to die (which is probably why we felt the need to invent god), so it would be wrong to anthropomorphise the fox's experience of death.
That's not to say that cruelty to animals is acceptable. To that end, a quick death from the hounds would probably be 'preferable' from a fox's point of view to a lingering death from poison, from choking in a snare or from gangrene induced by shotgun pellets, and I've seen the remains of foxes with all of those.
However, it's clear that nothing I can tell you about foxhunting will make you reassess your view. I can't quite work out what your view is, but it seems to be that the death involved in hunting is less acceptable than the death involved in bringing you your breakfast milk, your leather shoes or your cheap eggs. If you're a vegan, however, I apologise in advance for such an insulting assumption.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 11:53 AM

I had a lovely kangaroo steak when I was in Oz.
G ¦¬]

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: GUEST,The Shambles
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 12:23 PM

However, it's clear that nothing I can tell you about foxhunting will make you reassess your view. I can't quite work out what your view is, but it seems to be that the death involved in hunting is less acceptable than the death involved in bringing you your breakfast milk, your leather shoes or your cheap eggs. If you're a vegan, however, I apologise in advance for such an insulting assumption.

However you wish to dress this up. Whatever comparison you wish to use. Whatever baseless asumptions and harmful accusations you feel you need to dig-up and make to those who may not share your view or accept your excuses - it is a fact that you are defending inflicting THIS particular needless cruelty.

Not because this needless cruelty has ever had any effect on fox populations - but because a few people think that doing this for their sporting pleasure is acceptable. Is it really so important that this particular form of needless cruelty continues? Especially as (and as demonstrated this past weekend) all the other enjoyable and traditional aspects of riding to the hunt, can (and will) carry on exactly as before.

Perhaps someone would explain why they would wish to churn out the same old rubbish - in order to 'muddy the waters' to support and defend the continuation of this particular cruel practice?

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: Gervase
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 12:45 PM

Aye, I am defending what you see as needless cruelty. I don't see it as needless cruelty. There we'll have to disagree.
And it's probaby not so very important that it continues, any more than it's important that people should be able to sing and play without the interference of licensing authorities...it's just that it matters a lot to those who do it.
As for muddying the waters - someone asked me what I saw in hunting. I told them. Where's the mud - it's a subjective view from one who has taken part. One of the few here.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: GUEST,The Shambles
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 01:02 PM

That's not to say that cruelty to animals is acceptable.

No it isn't - but despite this statement - you are still saying the chasing by dogs and the (eventual) terrible death - only for the sporting pleasure of some of the participants IS acceptable.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: GUEST,The Shambles
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 02:15 PM

You say that it matters a lot to those who do it.

But you also say that it is 'not so very important' that the practice of these few people - who think there is sporting pleasure in chasing and tearing other animals to pieces with dogs - should continue.

If it is thought by you that this cruel practice is 'not so very important' - where then do you see the need for the cruelty? For if there is no need for this practice and it is 'not so very important' to continue chase and kill foxes with dogs - then surely any cruelty involved in this practice must be needless.

Or are you really saying that the practice of chasing and killing foxes with dogs for the plesure of a few is not inflicting cruelty at all?

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: John O'L
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 05:33 PM

Gervase -

The problem I have with the sport is that it is a celebration of needless killing, which has been our greatest failing as humans.
As we claim to be the most intelligent creature on Earth and the masters of all we see, shouldn't we be trying to lift ourselves away from such impulses, rather than wallowing in them?

Also, you mention that humans are thought to be the only creatures with self-awareness. Assuming this is true, are you really suggesting that for the purpose of the hunt we can simply turn it off like a tap, because the fox won't know the difference?
It is not a matter of anthropomorphising the fox's death, it is a matter of denying our own knowledge of life & death, right & wrong.
If we know of it we are committed to knowing of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: kendall
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 08:16 PM

We hunt Snowshoe Hares in Maine, and there aint a dog in the country that can catch one of those critters!
They make the mistake of running in a large circle to avoid getting too far from home, and the hunter can judge where it will return and he just stands there and shoots it. The dog never gets to tear it apart while it's still alive.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: kendall
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 08:19 PM

By the way, Doug, a few years ago, there was a big protest rally in England that made the TV news, and they were protesting fox hunting. However, the NRA picked it up and told us they were protesting the confiscation of guns. Lying bastards. I confronted Mr. LaPierre about that but he never did answer my letter.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: Gervase
Date: 23 Feb 05 - 03:27 AM

Roger, I said it was not so very important in the scheme of things because it isn't. Just as being able to make music in public places isn't so very important, or many of the 'rights' that we cherish, when placed alongside war, genocide, induced famine and poverty and the abuse of children.
As for a celebration of needless killing, that's a trickier one. I won't rehash the 'needless' argument, but the celebration issue has to be addressed. An alternative view would be to see the death of a creature as little more than the disposal of a piece of garbage; a perfunctory act of no more significance than flushing the lavatory.
What would that say about our views of life and death? In my experience, those who hunt (with hounds or with guns) are more attuned to the complex relationships between species and the cycle of life and death than those who don't. As such, as I explained earlier, death is not 'celebrated', but it is acknowledged far more than by those who prefer to have it carried out anonymously - for those who prefer not to see the connection between living creatures and the stuff they buy in the shops.
That's why I have respect for vegans, because they do make that connection and take a stand accordingly. Those who protest at foxhunting and yet do nothing about the real and systematic cruelty that underpins so much of our comfortable lives are simply being woolly minded at best, and ignorant and socially-divisive at worst.
For most people who argue against hunting it does seem to boil down to a perception of 'toffs on horseback' and an idealised continuation of old class struggles (I wonder what they would have said to Engels, who loved hunting). If they really thought otherwise, every time they took a stroll down the canalside they'd be kicking every angler into the water.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: John O'L
Date: 23 Feb 05 - 05:08 AM

Thanks for your insights Gervase, but this is going nowhere. I resign.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: GUEST,The Shambles
Date: 23 Feb 05 - 05:12 AM

Roger, I said it was not so very important in the scheme of things because it isn't. Just as being able to make music in public places isn't so very important, or many of the 'rights' that we cherish, when placed alongside war, genocide, induced famine and poverty and the abuse of children.

Gervase, this is exactly what I refer to as 'muddying the waters'. Not choosing to undertake, excuse or minimise any needless creulty - is a start.

When you are faced with the simple choice about whether to defend this particular needless creulty - (for a few people to obtain sporting pleasure by chasing and killing a fox with hounds) - even as you state that you don't consider its continuation to be 'so very important in the scheme of things - it is still seemingly important enough for you to choose to defend it here or critise others who do object to THIS particular cruel practice - why?

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 23 Feb 05 - 05:32 AM

I would take this opportunity to give fair warning to anyone who might contemplate 'strolling along the canal side and kicking every angler into the water' Unless you like the ideaa of wearing maggots or various other horrible smelly things in their hair I would suggest not doing it, it would also help if you are able to swim. As I said before angling is the biggest participation sport in the UK, and is prdominently a 'working mans' sport, so you will get no support from the Tony Banks's of this world should you try to get it banned, as it would cost the "Labour" [Phtooey] party too many votes. Also apart from coarse fishing where the majority of fish are put back, many people like myself only fish for the pot. Even what we now call coarse fish were once eaten, Tench and Carp being kept in monastery stew ponds for the Friday feast, and Pike is very nice to eat, as is Perch albeit bony. So as far as banning angling is concerned forget it, anyway "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry" as a certain man with a greenish tinge was known to say.
Giok ¦¬]

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: Gervase
Date: 23 Feb 05 - 06:24 AM

Why do I feel the need to defend it? Because it's something I value and it's under attack. One could ask why you (rightly in my view) feel the need to campaign against changes in the PEL system, or others campaign to preserve historic buildings and ancient woodland. It's because the great mass of the population either doesn't care or doesn't know enough about an issue to make an informed decision, so it's up to those who do know and care to stand up and debate the issue.
To return to the argument (at the risk of boring the rest of the world into catatonia), if you accept that foxes are going to be killed, what is wrong with using another species to do it cleanly and quickly? From my own experience, it is a lot less cruel than the alternatives.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 23 Feb 05 - 08:07 AM

'Cleanly and quickly' after chasing it, hugely outnumbered and driven mad by fear, to the point of exhaustion so it's unable to defend itself. Add to that the horde of primitives in red jackets blowing horns and shouting, driven temporarily mad by their blood-lust, and the number of members of the lower social orders who seek to inflate their sense of own-importance by associating with the gentry, and you've got a pretty appalling and disgusting spectacle.

I've got more respect for a sheep-shagger, at least the sheep might enjoy it too.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 23 Feb 05 - 08:22 AM

Why do I feel the need to defend it? Because it's something I value and it's under attack.

I would try and help, but you're doing a far better job than I could.

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 23 Feb 05 - 08:24 AM

199

Subject: RE: BS: Hunting banned in England/Wales
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 23 Feb 05 - 08:25 AM

200! Tally ho! Let's hope the Tories bring it back in the next Parliament!