Let’s bring back fox hunting

@sharongooner wrote:

Most farmers who love their stock look after it.

Those who dont deserve all they get! Incompitent swines.

So you think we should go back to intensive farming have sheep and their lambs in dark sheds and not allowed to graze the open fields. You cant keep a fox out all this would be easy if u could.

@(f)politics? wrote:

i can see you points totally but …….
They do need controlling so what is the answer if not fox hunting, it certainly isnt with marksman as i have previously stated
so we stop our huntsmens hounds (the hounds chase the fox btw the people on horseback follow )chasing the foxes now what ?
i suppose we should put all the cats out of circulation too for chasing and torturing rats and mice and birds too ?
Oh and when the rats multiply even more and start coming in our homes and chewing our wires destroying our homes we let them cos its cruel to stop them ?
These foxes killing a farmers livestock (their living) you know the ones all the non vegetarians tuck into for Sunday lunch roast lamb, its ok that about 10 of his playmates were slaughtered by a fox at least we got this one for lunch.

Dont get me wrong foxes are beautiful creatures but we need to control them and the best way is by getting rid of the old and infirm ie foxhunting

Hunting ban did not lead to fox increaseJames Meek, science correspondent The Guardian, Thursday September 5 2002 Article historyAbout this articleClose This article appeared in the Guardian on Thursday September 05 2002 . It was last updated at 10:10 on September 05 2002. The ban on fox hunting during last year’s foot and mouth outbreak did not lead to an increase in the number of foxes, scientists reported yesterday, undermining the hunting lobby’s claims that their pastime is an extravagant but necessary form of pest control.
Researchers worked out that the ban, which lasted for almost a year, was having no impact on fox numbers by counting fox faeces, or scats, in 160 randomly selected squares, a kilometre along each side, before and after the outbreak.

The research was funded by the International Fund for Animal Welfare and the RSPCA. But it will be difficult for hunters to dismiss it as biased because it was carried out by the Mammal Society, an independent scientific society with no corporate policy on hunting, and is published today in one of the world’s two most prestigious peer-reviewed science journals, Nature.

“[This] is the first scientific study on the impact of hunting on fox numbers, and it shows clearly that hunting plays no role in regulating fox numbers,” said Stephen Harris, the society’s chairman and a biologist at Bristol University.

“In fact these results add weight to the argument that foxes regulate their own numbers and that all forms of fox culling are less important than hitherto believed.”

There are almost a quarter of a million adult foxes in Britain, giving birth to about 425,000 cubs a year. To stop fox numbers growing, almost two thirds need to die each year, so even a one year ban (in 2001 there was a complete ten-month ban, followed by a partial two month ban) should have led to a rise in the fox population if the hunting lobby’s arguments were right.

The Mammal Society had been conducting a survey of fox numbers before foot and mouth broke out, so it had a baseline with which to calculate before and after fox populations.

In the chosen squares, surveyors walked along hedgerows, field edges and river banks – used by foxes in winter – examining the ground each step of the way for scats.

Each square was visited twice in 1999 and 2000, before foot and mouth, and twice again this year. On the first of each set of visits, surveyors removed old scats. On the second, they counted fresh scats, arriving at an estimate of fox numbers.

Far from increasing, it appeared numbers had declined slightly, although the decline was not statistically significant. Regionally, fox numbers were up in eastern England and down in southern England.

I read something similar actually pete
And would love to agree with you cos i do think foxes are beautiful creatures, but im afraid those stats are rubbish
Ask all the farmers around here they have increased admittedly not a huge amount but its early days still and they are still hunting of sorts anyway, just less effectively.
i do wonder though where they get these stats from im guessing the 160 different sites are less than rural and where hunts are not so abundant as they are in rural UK

@(f)politics? wrote:

I read something similar actually pete
And would love to agree with you cos i do think foxes are beautiful creatures, but im afraid those stats are rubbish
Ask all the farmers around here they have increased admittedly not a huge amount but its early days still and they are still hunting of sorts anyway, just less effectively.
i do wonder though where they get these stats from im guessing the 160 different sites are less than rural and where hunts are not so abundant as they are in rural UK

but foxes are territorial poli and breed dependant on the population in the area so if you kill foxes they will breed more conversely if ya leave them alone they will breed less Foxes hunt mainly rabbit and i’m sorry but i dont for one second believe pro hunting farmers who claim they are on the increase and are a grave economic threat to their farming

@(f)politics? wrote:

@~Pebbles~ wrote:

@(f)politics? wrote:

i suppose we should put all the cats out of circulation too for chasing and torturing rats and mice and birds too ?

what a pathetic point to make. Cats hunt mice and birds out of instinct, not malice, unlike humans who hunt foxes and try to pass it off as sport.

Also while on that point cats also “play” with their pray with no mercy they throw them about breaking every little bone in the their tiny bodies and sometimes eat them sometimes dont

As do killer whales and lions and many other animals. Its nature.

Why is a fox any different to any other mammal?

I have cats and a dog and birds, all natural enemies. Does not mean one is less favoured than the other because of their habits.

Im sorry but you can justify this all you like, it will never ever wash with me. One minute the arguement is about farmers and their stocks the next its about foxes getting in your rubbish. Its truelly pathetic actually as both are preventative.

As I said I know many farmers, and many chicken keepers. They protect their stock. Yep sometimes nature takes its course and the odd one will be lost to a fox, but not without the owners firstly and foremostly offering their stock adequate protection and using alternative methods rather than jumping on the nearest horse and blowing a fucking trumpet or whatever that pointless piece of brass is.