The Hunting Act is a terrible piece of legislation but the ban should still exist
Dear Tony Wright,
No doubt you are feeling rather smug this morning. Having become the first huntsman to be convicted of breaching the Hunting Act, which was introduced five years ago, you have successfully appealed against the ruling. It is now thought that future prosecutions under the legislation will become a lot harder, given the Judge’s verdict in your case. I wholeheartedly agree that the ban on hunting with dogs is confusing and poorly designed, but it is still absolutely right to outlaw this appalling practice.
In 2006, North Devon magistrates found you guilty of hunting foxes with dogs. You were fined £500 and ordered to pay £250 costs to the League Against Cruel Sports (which brought the prosecution). Yesterday, two High Court judges found that the use of dogs to “search for” a wild mammal in order to stalk it or flush it out was not in breach of the Act, despite the fact that you were filmed twice in 2005 apparently chasing a fox with dogs, as the judge decided the dogs were being used to flush out the fox with the intention it would be shot by a marksman, making the activity exempt from the ban. Even so, the judge noted that the relevant legislation was “far from simple to interpret or apply.” Lawyers said afterwards that this meant there could only be a prosecution where there is an actual pursuit of a wild mammal. The ruling also puts the onus on future prosecutors to prove a defendant was not covered by this exemption, although the accused must still produce evidence of what they are doing. The High Court even went as far as saying that the ban had created ”a most unusually formulated bundle of diverse exemptions.” In response to the verdict, you claimed to be the victim of a “vindictive persecution” while the Countryside Alliance said “politicians of all parties are coming to realise that it has failed and it is now a question of when, not if, the Hunting Act is repealed.”
The Countryside Alliance are largely correct. This legislation has failed and the High Court are right to brand it essentially unworkable. To have a situation where ’searching’ for foxes, deer, hares or minks using dogs is legal but ‘chasing’ these animals with dogs is illegal borders on farcical, but let’s just think about this for a moment. If you had to search for the foxes that you killed, I think it’s safe to assume that neither you nor your property were in any danger from them. If a farmer finds a fox near a chicken coup then it’s quite reasonable to argue (although still not entirely unobjectionable) that the fox was a pest and should be shot. Although it is very charitable of you to go ’searching’ for these foxes and use dogs to instill terror in them, your enjoyment of such an activity makes me sick. Shooting a wild animal that was minding its own business and not causing anyone any harm just because you enjoy it is a truly peverse habit and is little better than having it torn to pieces by hunting dogs. The fact that the judge put you on the right side of the thin line separating a pursuit from a search is beside the point – for anyone to take pleasure in harming innocent animals, be it shooting them or otherwise, is grotesque.
Feel free to join with the Countryside Alliance and campaign to repeal the hunting ban. If it gets replaced with a stricter, clearer and more effective piece of legislation then I will be absolutely delighted. It is worth remembering that the RSPCA exists because we as a society don’t think it’s good form to be needlessly cruel to animals. While the RSPCA may have its faults, their opposition to murdering animals is something that I find genuinely appealing. Your actions display true contempt for this principle and the fact that you had your conviction overturned does not change my attitude towards your disgusting pasttime in the slightest.
Yours sincerely,
A.Tory
Here here. It’s refreshing to hear a tory speak out on what has to be one of the most disgusting ’sports’ in Britain. I have lived in rural Lancashire for over 20 years and never seen one of these so called pests. I move to London and the majestic creatures are everywhere! And foxes are considerably more of a pest in the urban environment and yet the Countryside Alliance types always role out that silly arguement that all urbanites simply don’t understand the rural way of life. Nonsense – they understand compassion and animal welfare, which is sadly lacking from these foppy haired, lacking braincells huntsman.
The law needs to be stregthened and these ludicrous loopholes need to be closed.
Like most legislation passed in the last ten years, it is the true motive of the law which should be examined when judging its worth.
This law was passed for two reasons: To pay back Labour backbenchers for support on other measures and to take a swipe at the areas of the country which do not usually vote Labour while making he party look good in front of its metropolitan core vote.
Whether fox hunting is truly the cruellest or most effective way of controlling the fox population, I don’t really know. But as a Rural voter I do see this legislation in the context of Labour’s marginalisation of rural constituencies. Changes in constituency boundaries have left many rural voters with no voice by linking them to much higher populations in the suburbs, and I wonder if the countryside could have been so marginalised had this not happened. Transport, Post offices, roads, amongst the many areas that have been neglected by this government in rural areas.
This government does not understand or care about the countryside, and that is why this piece of legislation is such a convoluted piece of nonsense.
“Shooting a wild animal that was minding its own business and not causing anyone any harm just because you enjoy it is a truly peverse habit…”
But in a free country, one that is not illegal, provided game laws are followed. Just because it isn’t a sport you like, dont feel you have the right to forbid it to others.
Otherwise, what differentiates you from NuLab..?
“While the RSPCA may have its faults, their opposition to murdering animals…”
You can’t ‘murder’ animals.
Whether fox hunting is truly the cruellest or most effective way of controlling the fox population, I don’t really know.
Here’s a clue – there we no foxes on the Isle of Wight but huntsmen *introduced* them to provide for the sport of hunting. Meaning its not really about pest control – and the fact that we don’t hunt and destroy the burgeoning urban fox population should provide another hint!
Tony E, Labour’s motives were indeed questionable. They never intended to put together something that worked – this was a vindictive measure designed to bolster support in their core voting areas.
Julia – just because current laws might allow something doesn’t mean it’s right, surely you have seen enough to Labour’s crap legislation to know that the law is often at odds with basic common sense. If gaming laws allow animals to be killed just for the fun of it, something is horribly wrong. Your use of the word ’sport’ is also quite disturbing from my point of view, as I equate ’sport’ with ‘entertainment’ and being entertained by killing animals is very very wrong.
Tony E: I agree that rural constituencies are being marginalised and the thorough lack and deteriation of infrastructure, including roads, post offices and bus services is crazy but you can’t possibly lump ripping foxes apart along with old village residents being able to get their pensions.
Shaun: I am always amazed to see any animal that can survive alongside humans. Our destructive force usually prevents this. There are plenty of places where animals are introduced to be killed but does this have to be done in such cruel way. and thus this is simply a ’sport’ with no benefit to the people at large and pf huge detriment to animal welfare. They do a similar thing with hares in the despicable act of hare-coursing by collecting them up in the surrounding countryside and watching 2 dogs chase the hare in an enclosed area until they rip it apart. If it is a sport – it’s a bit one sided!
Lets face it – it is not a sport otherwise there is a chance that either side could win. And in fox hunting, badger baiting, bullfighting, hare-coursing there is absolutely no chance of the non-human animal winning. That is mere blood lust not sport.
Sorry Julia, but I must disagree…
But in a free country, one that is not illegal, provided game laws are followed. Just because it isn’t a sport you like, dont feel you have the right to forbid it to others.
But fox hunting was *made* illegal… (this, incidentally, is why you can never, ever say something is morally wrong because it’s illegal as laws can change overnight whereas morality doesn’t).
You can’t ‘murder’ animals.
I think that’s a pretty sweeping assertion. What is murder? Is it the taking of a life? Does that life have to have sentience and if so, what differentiates a baby chimpanzee from a human infant when, developmentally, at the infant stage it’s been shown that chimps are ’smarter’?
Personally I think that of course we have the freedom to do as we please. We can kill one another if we like, running the risk of prosecution. However, just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should do it! It’s a mark of our civillisation that we do not encourage people to abuse the weak. This manifests itself in a number of ways but the most relevant one is that we consider it wrong to inflict harm on the defenceless – animals. They can’t speak up and can’t object but it’s a folly to suggest they can’t suffer, can’t experience fear or pain. Its arguable whether higher primates can anticipate their own death.
I’m an atheist but were I a Christian, I’d contend that its clear that Man is supposed to be a steward of nature and while ‘God’ gave us plants and animals to use, there’s a difference between use and abuse.
But I am an atheist so instead I must ask if we can consider ourselves civillised when we want to pursue, for our entertainment, a passtime that increases the net amount of suffering in the world, that dresses up the targetting and elimination of a single animal by disproportionate means in the name of ’sport’? Maybe its just me but my personal morality leads me to believe that causing suffering or pain for my own enjoyment would be wrong. Outside, that is, of a MaX Mosely-ish setting!
“If gaming laws allow animals to be killed just for the fun of it, something is horribly wrong. Your use of the word ’sport’ is also quite disturbing from my point of view, as I equate ’sport’ with ‘entertainment’ and being entertained by killing animals is very very wrong.”
You sound like a Puritan here. ‘I feel it’s wrong, so it must be, and I’ll ban it!’.
Who are you to impose your morality on anyone else?
Who are you to impose your morality on anyone else?
What about those who’s morality calls for human sacrifice? Do we have the right to impose our moral values on them? Or those who believe, like the Ancient Greeks, that pederasty is a moral good that initiates children into the adult world?
“And in fox hunting, badger baiting, bullfighting, hare-coursing there is absolutely no chance of the non-human animal winning.”
You would have had an argument there if you’d left out fox hunting and harecoursing, where the animal does indeed stand a very good chance of getting away.
As for bullfighting, the list of dead matadors rather puts the lie to that one….
“What about those who’s morality calls for human sacrifice?”
Animals aren’t human, Shaun. I say that as an animal lover with four cats.
“I think that’s a pretty sweeping assertion. What is murder? Is it the taking of a life?”
It’s the taking of human life.
“Maybe its just me but my personal morality leads me to believe that causing suffering or pain for my own enjoyment would be wrong. “
Most hunters would agree with you – it’s why there are ‘fair chase’ rules and restrictins on the type of weapons that can be employed, and the times and areas where prey can be hunted.
People who revel in the suffering of animals have a name, and it isn’t ‘hunter’ – it’s ’sadist’.
Animals aren’t human, Shaun. I say that as an animal lover with four cats.
So to go back to your original remark about ‘murder’, what is it that sets humans apart? Sentience? Intelligence? If so, how does that relate to the example I gave of infant humans v infant chimps or the mentally impaired?
Humans, I’d argue are not seperate to nature. We are part of it’s continuum. So what gives us the right to inflict pain and fear and suffering on something else just for our own enjoyment (as opposed to eating which addresses an existential need)?
Julia: Hunters were people who went out and caught animals in order to feed themselves, their family and their community. These red coated, tight wearing wierdos have no noble purpose. They are not doing a service, providing food or playing a sport. So your last comment is completely correct. What they are doing is for their own enjoyment alone. Ripping animals apart by dogs, and enjoying it, can only be viewed as sadistic.
“So to go back to your original remark about ‘murder’, what is it that sets humans apart?”
Evolution. We are the dominant species on the planet, and so the great apes (despite the Spanish clown’s attempt to get them ‘human rights’) are merely animals, for all they ‘ape’ (ho ho) some aspects of human society.
Wipe us out and leave apes to evolve, they may well evolve into something resembling us in every important way. But that’s not the situation we have now.
Julia: The list of dead bulls is far longer – if anyone kept a list that is. Oh yes and the matador has a choice and isn’t fed laxatives and blood let before being let into the ring!
I’ve seen hare-coursing and the hare didn’t stand a chance! A three sided enclosed area with beaters on the far side to prevent any escapees and two rabid dogs. The hare would have to be houdini to get out of that one! And the people certainly weren’t appreciating it as a sport – they wanted blood!
Foxes might stand a chance if they were left once they gone to ground – but not a chance. He’s trapped by the terrier men and literally dug out. Nice sport! Think I’ll stick to watching rugby!
“Julia: Hunters were people who went out and caught animals in order to feed themselves, their family and their community.”
And for sport. No one needs to hunt, shoot or fish – coarse anglers don’t even eat what they catch.
“These red coated, tight wearing wierdos have no noble purpose. They are not doing a service, providing food or playing a sport. “
Yes they were. It’s a sport you don’t like, and have no wish to take part in, as is your right.
But it IS a sport.
“I’ve seen hare-coursing and the hare didn’t stand a chance! A three sided enclosed area with beaters on the far side to prevent any escapees and two rabid dogs. “
‘Rabid’ dogs…? I’d venture to suggest that if that was the case, more than the hare had reason to worry!
Joking aside, most hares aren’t killed in harecoursing.
“Nice sport! Think I’ll stick to watching rugby!”
Your choice. Let others have theirs, eh?
Evolution. We are the dominant species on the planet, and so the great apes (despite the Spanish clown’s attempt to get them ‘human rights’) are merely animals, for all they ‘ape’ (ho ho) some aspects of human society.
So might is right? Just because we’re at the top of the pile, we can do as we please? That can’t be right – as I argued just because you have the capacity to do something, doesn’t mean you should do it.
We have a lot in common with other mammals – similar neurology, flight, fight and fear responses and of course pain. Animals can (and do) suffer, so why should we consider it okay to cause that suffering for no reason other than our entertainment? To me, that’s deeply immoral and not something I think we should support.
The problem is that the sadists who partake in this passtime have tried (unsuccessfully) to pass it off as utilitarian (Pest control) which indicated that they, on some level, would be ashamed to be seen to kill animals for fun. They can’t be talked out of it which only left the law.
After all, we outlawed bear-baiting, dog-fighting and cock-fighting as they were cruel…
“there are ‘fair chase’ rules and restrictins on the type of weapons that can be employed, and the times and areas where prey can be hunted.”
Right, so as long as we make some abitrary rules about which weapons can be used to indiscriminately kill particular animals, it’s ok. Only killing foxes on a Saturday from 1-3pm is fine, but doing it on a Tuesday would obviously be disgusting.
*roll eyes*
Letting anyone choose which ’sport’ they wanted to pursue is a poor argument. What if I killed your cats because I believe cat hunting is a sport? What would you say? I’d say that it’s my choice to pursue whatever sport I wanted to and I’m the dominant species on the planet so why shouldn’t I kill your cat? I’m not going to eat it, it’s just fun. I don’t need to hunt your cat but I choose to do it anyway.
You see where your arguments lead?
“why shouldn’t I kill your cat?” because you would be destroying the property of another.
“If you had to search for the foxes that you killed, I think it’s safe to assume that neither you nor your property were in any danger from them.”
Foxes of course will never move around so you can be sure that if you see one away from your property it will never attack your livestock.
Foxes are vermin and need to be controlled. None of the ways of killing them are going to be ideal but it seems that the reason that hunting them with dogs gets so much approbium is not the effect on the fox but the fact that some people enjoy hunting them.
By all means tell those who go foxhunting that you believe their behavior is barbaric etc but this is not a good basis for making the activity illegal.
“Letting anyone choose which ’sport’ they wanted to pursue is a poor argument. What if I killed your cats because I believe cat hunting is a sport?”
That would, I presume, be grounds for a claim for property damage. Depending on how you did it, it would also possibly be animal cruelty. I own my cats.
If it wasn’t for hunting, a hell of a lot of wild places wouldn’t exist. Take a look at game reserves in Africa, and parks in America. They are preserved because hunters spend the money to do so for their chosen prey species, and that conserves many, many other species.
This isn’t just the view of ‘bloodthirsty hunters’ either. Most conservationists agree.
“That can’t be right – as I argued just because you have the capacity to do something, doesn’t mean you should do it. “
It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t, either. Nor that your personal morality should naturally trump that of others.
“…it seems that the reason that hunting them with dogs gets so much approbium is not the effect on the fox but the fact that some people enjoy hunting them.”
The Puritans, famously, outlawed bearbaiting not because of the pain it gave the bear, but the pleasure it gave the people.
yawn – I guess they could have got him if he had been smoking? this country has far to much nannyism.
Personally, I find the idea of deliberately ripping a fox to pieces somewhat disgusting, and I am surprised that others enjoy it. I haven’t ever done, though, and I am instinctively wary of banning something I don’t fully understand. Set against that is my usual test for nanny laws; do the downside risks fall on the person doing the act, or on another life? Foxhunting fails that test as comprehensively as does any form of animal cruelty, but only based on my very incomplete understanding of it.
So I’m not going to express an opinion either way, on whether the ban was/is right.
What I am going to say is that it is absolutely essential that law is clear. I can accept that no-one is perfect, and that most laws will have unintentional grey areas despite the best efforts of lawmakers. But this law was written badly, it was recognised as unclear when it was debated, and it was enacted knowing it was unworkable. When you write a law you take on the responsibility for defining what people may or may not do, on pain of punishment and possibly loss of liberty. It is simply not acceptable to pass a law that you know full well is grossly unclear and unworkable on the very point that it seeks to legislate.
Would that this was a rare example of New Labour’s law; sadly it is far from so. As I have blogged before, regardless of the quality of their policies, New Labour are not competent to govern.
Foxes are vermin and need to be controlled. None of the ways of killing them are going to be ideal but it seems that the reason that hunting them with dogs gets so much approbium is not the effect on the fox but the fact that some people enjoy hunting them.
A specious argument as I’ve already shown that hunters introduce fox populations to fox-free areas in order to provide for their sport. I don’t recall us tolerating rat chatchers who first infest your property with rats!
You say foxes are vermin but they are on an evolutionary par with their sister species, the Wolf, from which dogs are descended…
“It is simply not acceptable to pass a law that you know full well is grossly unclear and unworkable on the very point that it seeks to legislate.”
This ‘Times’ editorial sums it up well, and makes that very point…
That the current legislation is wholly inadequate is clear for all to see – everyone is in agreement. The debate is over what should be done instead: tear up the legislation or make it do the job that it was intended for.
I think it’s fair to say we sit on different sides of the fence on which is the correct response!
The only justification anyone has ever offered for this nonsense is that they don’t like it. Poor argument for passing legislation
The only justification anyone has ever offered for this nonsense is that they don’t like it. Poor argument for passing legislation
Straw man. My argument is that taking pleasure in causing suffering to another living thing is immoral and devalues our civilisation which is why it should be prohibited.
To follow your argument to its logical conclusion, we should legalise bear-baiting and dog fighting…
Yes, a straw man. I don’t like it, but I don’t like it because I don’t see why chasing a living animal in fear of its life until it is exhausted then ripping it to pieces should be seen as an acceptable leisure activity.
So my inclination is to ban, but my libertarianism combines with my awareness of my own limited knowledge to leave me shamefully unable to reach a firm conclusion.
There are plenty of things I don’t like that I also don’t want banned.
There are plenty of things I don’t like that I also don’t want banned.
Libertariansism is an expression of your right to do as you please provided you don’t cause harm to others.
The argument of the pro hunting lobby is that it’s okay to cause harm to animals because they are not human. I disagree with that, suggesting that harm to animals is only permissible when an existential issue is at stake – like needing food or having to protect yourself. Animals can’t lobby for protection, they rely on us to extend protection to them from our own excesses and that is why the answer to this question directly affects the moral quality of our society.
I’d agree with you Shaun, if I didn’t know that I will happily destroy any insect that gets in my way. Can’t stand the little buggers.
So there is a threshold. I put the threshold somewhere above insects and below foxes. But I can see that others may differ as to where they place the threshold. So the problem remains.
“My argument is that taking pleasure in causing suffering to another living thing is immoral and devalues our civilisation which is why it should be prohibited.”
If the foxhunters wanted to ’cause suffering’, they’d use much, much smaller dogs.
Snares, poisoning, gassing and shooting all cause much more suffering to the animal.
Personally I think it’s about mammals.
I don’t know if insect experience the complex neural processes that mammals do – I don’t know if they can feel fear, anguish or pain. They are often completely alien hive-minds. I am unsure if they can suffer and indeed, I think science is still looking at this.
Mammals are a different issue as they do feel pain and so on. What’s more even the crappiest mammal, a mouse, has enough in common with a human to be a valid tool in medical testing which is why its here I’d draw the line when it comes to causing pain and suffering for non-existential reasons.
If the foxhunters wanted to ’cause suffering’, they’d use much, much smaller dogs.
Would they? I’m fairly sure they use the dogs they’ve bred specifically for the task because smaller dogs lack the stamina to run a fox to ground and don’t have the tracking abillity. I don’t think they are concerned with causing suffering – they want a kill. Its the process that causes the suffering to the animal and this is a by-product of the process of killing in this way.
Snares, poisoning, gassing and shooting all cause much more suffering to the animal.
Yes but again, it’s clearly not about pest control as any number of these methods could be more efficient.
The other way you can tell it’s not about pest control is the fact that no action is taken to limit or diminish the burgeoning urban fox population beyond advice to secure your bin lids!
“…no action is taken to limit or diminish the burgeoning urban fox population beyond advice to secure your bin lids!”
No, pest controllers will deal with them.
“What’s more even the crappiest mammal, a mouse, has enough in common with a human to be a valid tool in medical testing which is why its here I’d draw the line when it comes to causing pain and suffering for non-existential reasons.”
So your ok with causing pain an suffering after all, it just depends on what for?
Sport – No, you sadists!
Medical research – Yes please!
I’m reminded of that old joke, the punchline of which goes “We’ve already established that. Now, we’re haggling over price…”
Yes, mammals are an equally sensible place to put the threshold. But my point is that the positioning is still debateable; to a devout Buddhist, I’d look cruel.
So I don’t feel I have the right to declare that my treatment of insects is ok but hunters’ treatment of foxes is not. The unsatisfactory compromise that results is that I don’t hunt foxes, but I recoil from damning those who do.
Urban foxes are indeed a pest, as are foxes who jump into chicken coups and try to have a quick meal.
Patently’s point about libertarianism is a very pertinent one. Libertarians believe that the only limit to freedom is when other’s liberty is restricted. The threshold is difficult to pinpoint but it surely exists well before we get to tearing foxes and hares into tiny pieces and causing them to suffer horribly.
For a Tory blog, there seems to have been a fair amount of agreement with Labour bans of late.
I didn’t see a problem with the fox hunting ban at the time (except the invocation of the Parliament Act), but after witnessing the frenzy of banning that has followed in its wake, I’m right behind the fox hunters if they can give this totalitarian administration a hefty smack in the face.
Isn’t a repeal of the hunting ban proposed to be in the next Tory manifesto?
Depends whether a fox qualifies as “an other” being, LFAT.
Don’t forget the role of one of my favourite philosophical tools, hedonic calculus!
LFAT you’re a kill joy. Be it drugs, prostitution, hunting, speed cameras, whatever, you’re instincts are tediously puritanical and illiberal. Get a life.
Yes, because not wanting animals to be torn into lots of tiny pieces is “tediously puritanical and illiberal”.
My apologies.
Patently, I accept that drawing a definitive line is complicated. I think animal rights are a complicated issue, as Julia pointed out, because medical research may harm animals and hunting certainly does yet they both have very different motives, methods and outcomes.
Shaun – I find myself agreeing with you on this one. But I’m still not happy about vivsection for medical reasons either. Hopefully, other methods will become more accurate for testing drugs in the not too distant future, such as tissue cultures or computer models. But currently they are just not as effective as using a mouse.
As we have given ourselves the title of guardian, controller and destroyer of all aspects of nature then we are also responsible for speaking out for the animals that we seek to control/conserve. As Shaun says, the science of pain is pretty well established for mammals at least. Insects are a bit more tricky. And I only ever kill insects that try to hurt me eg. mosquitos – so it’s self defence.
Another law regarding animal welfare that has ridiculous loopholes is the whaling moratorium. Japan and its ’science’ whaling is just as ridiculous as the foxhunter and his ’sport’ killing. Drag hunting would be a much better sport – yet they just don’t seem so keen – must be the lack of a dead animal at the end!
We can save the whaling discussion for another day, suffice to say that I reluctantly accept the need for animal research for medical purposes but don’t think that setting a pack of dogs after a fox is quite as beneficial for society.
LFAT, sorry, I don’t agree. Foxhunting may be ‘barbaric’ (so is eating meat or wearing fur, really) and I personally think it’s daft, but it is ‘beneficial for society’ – people enjoy doing it, people make money looking after the horses and dogs, it gets people out in the fresh air (hunters and saboteurs alike) and so on.
And from the foxes’ point of view, it’s either being attacked by dogs, run over by a car, shot by a farmer, snared, gassed, whatever. Hardly appealing prospects whichever way you cut it.
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people enjoy doing it, people make money looking after the horses and dogs, it gets people out in the fresh air (hunters and saboteurs alike) and so on.
People enjoy hard drugs and make money out of dealing them and probably deal with them in the fresh outside air in many instances, but that in itself is not an argument to just let it be. Sorry but I think we need to consider things in a slightly more nuanced way than that….
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Thank you for exactly proving my point.
Spot on, Candid. We *are* on the same page…
But I’m still not happy about vivsection for medical reasons either.
I have drawn the distinction that we can harm animals when it relates to an *existential* issue. Like eating, medical research and transplantation. Things that directly affect the continuing ability of humans to live (yes, we *could* be vegetarians, just about, but we are evolved to have an omnivorous diet and… well I’m just going to get lynched by vegans now. Save the Sprouts, brother!). Vivisection is an abhorrent practice, one that is probably justified in being banned from being done on humans, even volunteers. One notable Western society, and one Eastern one, both indulged in human vivisection in the 40s and we rightly view these as venal, amoral regimes, much as we look at North Korea today. That said, we learn a lot from animal vivisection – particularly in neuroscience – but technology is gradually reducing the circumstances in which we have to do that and the practice is tightly controlled. Indicative, I’d argue, that me know it’s not a good thing but a tolerated evil and one that we actively work to eliminate. Additionally the use of animal models seems ever more limited as our medicines become more precise – look at the lads who got elephantitis and lost hands and feet in the medical trial of a nano-med that had been safely tested on dogs!
Of course we are ‘higher’ life-forms than animals of all sorts. But with that amazing gift, the fact we all evolved alongside eachother as distant cousins and we somehow ended up on top of the pile (’somehow’ probably involves the genocide of at least 1 other sentient hominid), comes, I think a responsibility. Of course we’re free to eat, kill and torture as we please but we shouldn’t as we’re all related, it’s pretty random chance that its us monkies sitting here having a chat rather than, say, lizards and so we have to act with compassion and behave not as we are, but as we wish to be – with kindness and morality, protecting the weak even as we despise them, whether it’s a fox, a stray dog or, for that matter, a feral chav on a council estate.
“…protecting the weak even as we despise them, whether it’s a fox, a stray dog or, for that matter, a feral chav on a council estate.”
Ah, now if we could only get foxhound packs to chase these instead, no-one would have any complaints at all…
Ah, now if we could only get foxhound packs to chase these instead, no-one would have any complaints at all…
Now you’re getting it! Also can there be any doubt that a pack of dogs versus a Chav with a knife is at least a fairer fight than a bedraggled fox! Also, Chavs would have a reasonable chance of avoiding hunting by, y’know, staying indoors and maybe doing some maths homework, or at least ditching the hoody and not hanging about on a street corner!
“Also can there be any doubt that a pack of dogs versus a Chav with a knife is at least a fairer fight than a bedraggled fox!”
Oh, no. You’d have to scale them up. Make it a pack of Rhodesian Ridgebacks. You don’t want any wounded chavs to escape.
That would be inhumane…
Oh, no. You’d have to scale them up. Make it a pack of Rhodesian Ridgebacks. You don’t want any wounded chavs to escape.
And yet here the Ironic Punishment Division coincides with the Breeding Practices division to replace Ridgebacks (who’s ridge is a spinal deformity leading to disability where, perversely, we disguard non-disabled dogs for failing our breed-aesthetic standards! Soz – pet hate!) with health, energetic Staffys and Pitbulls. Urban prey for urban preditors!
That could work. You’d have to ovey the rules of fair chase, though.
No hunting in breeding areas – nightclubs, pubs and the backseats of Fords.
Unless we *wanted* to deplete the population. But yeah, I’d hobble onto a horse in a silly coat and tight pants to take part in that!
Shaun, you can’t legalise things – you can only make things illegal. Something that this (socialist) government has proved very good at, but not something a tory should embrace.
“A specious argument as I’ve already shown that hunters introduce fox populations to fox-free areas in order to provide for their sport.”
The fact that foxes have been introduced to some areas for sport does not change the fact that they are vermin and need to be controlled.
“The other way you can tell it’s not about pest control is the fact that no action is taken to limit or diminish the burgeoning urban fox population beyond advice to secure your bin lids!”
Livestock in need of protection from foxes being a major feature of urban areas. Do you ever think before hitting submit?
The fact that foxes have been introduced to some areas for sport does not change the fact that they are vermin and need to be controlled.
So wait, you call them vermin and yet you accept they were introduced deliberately to areas free of them? Wow, I’m glad that agricultural bio-security is in the hands of people who prioritising fixing problems over causing them. Oh wait…
Do you ever think before hitting submit?
Usually well enough to avoid making self-contradictory statements…