Mrs May Admits Defeat On Hunting With Dogs

[mikey4444]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42594068

A Manifesto promise made only a few months ago is now abandoned.

[andy-hughes]

I think the notion that fox-hunting is the preserve of 'toffs' has been more or less abandoned now.

What should be considered though, is that people who do like to hunt tend to be Conservative voters, be they 'toffs' farmers, 'ordinary people' or whatever.

My major problem with hunters and their supporters is their mealy-mouthed excuses for what they do - foxes are vermin, kill livestock, and so on and so on.

The simple fact is, people hunt foxes because they enjoy hunting foxes - the thrill of the chase and all that.

I find their actions abhorrent, but would respect them far more if they simply admitted that they hunt for pleasure, and stopped trying to justify it by some guff about balancing the environment.

[mikey4444]

Andy...Of course they hunt for pleasure, but very few people are going to admit that they like cruelty to animals, so they fall back on the usual excuses ....."traditional" country pursuit is favourite, but there again, so is marrying your cousin.

[woofgang]

Which is actually legal mikey and according to this, safe too. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/theres-nothing-wrong-with-cousins-getting-married-scientists-say-1210072.html

[david small]

Shock, horror, not another Manifesto promise abandoned. Well who would believe it? ....ME.

[andy-hughes]

mikey - // Andy...Of course they hunt for pleasure, but very few people are going to admit that they like cruelty to animals, so they fall back on the usual excuses ....."traditional" country pursuit is favourite, but there again, so is marrying your cousin. //

In my experience, the traditional rebuttal is the tendency for townies not to understand 'country ways'.

By that, they mean that country dwellers have far less sentimental attachment to the animals that surround them, they are usually either working animals, food, or vermin, so emotional links tend to be way down the scale of attitudes, compared with town and city dwellers whose interaction with animals is usually as pets, and therefore they develop a sentimental and humanist approach to them.

I do understand that absence of sentimentality in country dwellers in terms of animals, but I still find that the pleasure in hunting an animal to exhaustion and death is an attitude that I cannot reconcile with the concept of being a decent and moral human being.

[237SJ]

I`ve never understood the opinion that country dwellers are into fox hunting. I was born and bred in the country from farming stock (so was my Dad and his father etc etc back for 500 years) I only know a handful of people who went fox hunting and they were avid horse riders. Most country folk are not remotely interested in fox hunting with hounds and most farmers are too busy looking after their animals to turn out on a horse for a galavant around the countryside.

[237SJ]

Oh, and the biggest fan of hunting that I know is a "Townie" from Harrow who has moved to the SW and is trying to go native by advocating hunting with dogs.

[woofgang]

What 237sj said. Most of the people I know were born round here and come from local families and few of them hunt or approve of it. Even when I rode and knew quite a few riders, few of them hunted. The people who rented horses to hunt or kept them at livery were mainly townies.

[andy-hughes]

237SJ - // I`ve never understood the opinion that country dwellers are into fox hunting. //

Obviously, stereotyping is never helpful in debate, but I think it's a valid point that although the majority of country dwellers are bot hunters, the majority of hunters are country dwellers.

We are talking broad demographics here, and they are not really challenged by individuals who buck the trend.

[237SJ]

Of course they are country dwellers. When did Londoners ever have to worry about their lambs being killed by foxes.

[andy-hughes]

237SJ - // Of course they are country dwellers. When did Londoners ever have to worry about their lambs being killed by foxes. //

That is in danger of drifting from the point of the OP.

Yes foxes kill lambs and livestock, but they do it for food, which is a universe away from hunting and killing purely for sport.

[237SJ]

I think you have missed my point. I don't advocate killing animals for sport.

[Davemano]

Anything that can be made to look anti-Tory. No further comment.

[237SJ]

"Yes, foxes kill lambs and livestock" You don't say! I am guessing that you have read that somewhere and not seen it for yourself

[andy-hughes]

237SJ - // "Yes, foxes kill lambs and livestock" You don't say! I am guessing that you have read that somewhere and not seen it for yourself //

I'm not sure what the point of that snipe is?

Just how many country dwellers do you think have actually seen a fox kill anything?

But the point is, I don't need to have seen something to hold, and express a view on it - as I have said times without number on this site.

[woofgang]

My experience of country people who are inconvenienced by foxes taking their livestock is that they go out with a gun or pay someone else to and don’t faff around. As I said, where my mate lives in the Highlands, the going rate is 20 quid a tail. Time and cartridges cost money so they do enough to stop the depradation and no more.

[andy-hughes]

woofgang - I am sure than you would agree that, to date, there is no humane and effective way to keep the fox population balanced with other species - but it is obvious even to the casual observer, that hunting with dogs is a supremely inefficient way of doing it!

But that is my point - if hunters got off their defence that they kill foxes, and stuck to the point - that they enjoy hunting, and hunting is the object of the exercise, not the occasional non-guaranteed kill, then at least they would be being honest with everyone.

[Spicerack]

'Report
Avatar Image woofgang
Which is actually legal mikey and according to this, safe too. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/theres-nothing-wrong-with-cousins-getting-married-scientists-say-1210072.html'

Safe too, woof? Well, if you consider the 10-15x higher incidence of birth defects reasonably safe.
I was quite surprised to see Mikey having a dig at the Pakistani community, too.

[woofgang]

Did you read the article? Statistically its as safe as a woman over 40 having a child.

[vetuste_ennemi]

// Statistically it's as safe as a woman over 40 having a child.//

But if women over 40 were having babies at the same rate (compared to younger women) as UK Pakistani descendants of any age are marrying their first cousins you'd have a larger problem, wouldn't you, Woofgang?