Keep the hunting ban, only civilised way forward

Dig out

An article in the METRO by James Barrington of the Countryside Alliance (a pro-blood sports hunting/shooting organisation) caught my eye this week. I was surprised to see that Mr Barrington started his article by quoting some well-known people who are against hunting, and who are vociferous in exposing the cruelty that pastime inflicts on defenceless wild animals.   

“Hunting is a barbarous activity carried out by people who couldn’t care less about the welfare of wild animals – if you believe the likes of Ricky Gervais and Brian May.” (quote: James Barrington)

Mr Barrington then goes on to invite ‘genuine scrutiny’ of that viewpoint, which he claims proves to be false. So let us take him at his word and scrutinise the sport of mounted fox hunting with hounds.

The savaging of a hunted fox by the hounds, or the ‘business end’ of the activity as Mr Barrington describes it, happens after a long chase.

---

Hounds are specially bred for stamina rather that speed, and sometimes the chase can last for hours until the exhausted fox can run no more and is forced to attempt to fight thirty or forty dogs. The fox is quickly rolled onto his back by the much bigger heavier hounds, exposing his soft under belly, and he is disembowelled as he tries to fight for his life.  Dogs kill by biting and tearing, there is no swift nip on the neck, as hunters used to claim, before video and post mortem evidence proved that to be a lie. Hunted foxes caught above ground are quite literally bitten to death. Huge chunks of flesh are torn from the fox’s body, leaving gaping wounds and exposing organs and other structures underneath. To claim that hunting is non-wounding, or the fox escapes unscathed, is just another attempt to gloss over and sanitise a cruel and savage sport. The time from capture to death is irrelevant; it is obscene on every level to inflict this kind of mental and physical suffering on any sentient creature for any length of time however short or long that time may be.

In 2002, post-mortems carried out as evidence for the Home Office report into the animal welfare aspects of hunting hares and foxes, showed that 5 of the 12 hares killed were pregnant, and all had their necks broken by humans after bites by greyhounds had failed to kill them. The corpses of four foxes killed by hunting were also examined by vets at the University of Bristol. Two of the foxes had been shot, having gone to ground, but the post mortem on the first fox (hunted in Cotswold Park) showed it had been savaged before death. The second fox (hunted on Salisbury Plain) was dug out, having gone to ground after being chased, and had to be shot twice. This poor animal was forced to fight with a terrier underground, and after half an hour of digging, was hauled out and shot first through the shoulder, which failed to kill him so a second shot was required.

The post-mortems on the other two foxes who were killed above ground, showed that one had suffered multiple bite wounds on the face and the top of the head. There was serious damage to the right eye, and bite wounds around the throat. The animal’s rib cage had been torn open and its lungs and stomach bitten. Professor David Morton, Head of Biomedical Ethics at Birmingham University, said the evidence pointed to the fox having been attacked whilst it was upside down or on its side. The other fox was also savaged, but it was thought he had died from suffocation which would not have been instant.  None of the animals died instantly which clearly shows they would have suffered greatly.

A different cruel fate awaits those foxes who manage to go to ground. This is taken from the Campaign for the Abolition of Terrier Work website,

“Apart from the pain from the injuries from fighting underground, sometimes a dog entered may encounter a wild animal with its back to it, and therefore that dog will rip at the backside of the wild creature. This cruelty can last for several hours, and there are accounts of foxes having parts of their back passage and abdomen ripped out while in this position. There are also numerous references to foxes having their faces ripped off by the dog underground.”

Sometimes the fox is killed underground after protracted fighting with a terrier man’s dog, and there are often severe injuries to the terrier too. The men are meanwhile digging down from above. If the fox has taken refuge in a badger sett, digging him out may take many hours. Often a shot is fired into the hole to make sure the cowering, terrified animal inside is too afraid to try to bolt. Any escape holes are netted or blocked.

Once the fox is located, he is dragged out, and if he is lucky, he is shot dead.

Re-coated huntsman watches dig out

Terrier men on quad

All that's left, scrap of skin

Sometimes he will be thrown to the dogs alive, and the men may take videos which are later posted up on social media sites like Face Book or Instagram. The terrier men are also the hunt bully boys who are not above committing GBH on others who attempt to disrupt hunting by diverting the hounds away from their fleeing quarry.   

(Today it is illegal to use a hard mouthed, or fighting terrier, underground, and rather than risk taking an injured animal to a vet, the terrier men often stitch their dogs’ wounds themselves without anaesthetic or analgesia.)

The story of Copper the fox, named because he was saved by a policeman’s helmet, illustrates perfectly the misleading statement that foxes may escape unscathed. Copper had been chased down a hole, over which was placed a policeman’s helmet to prevent him being dragged out and killed.

The standoff lasted sometime, but eventually when the hunt gave up and moved off, Copper was rescued, and taken to a wildlife centre to recover. Such was his mental trauma from being chased that he suffered multi organ failure, including bleeding from both kidneys.

The other claim that fox hounds generally catch the old, weak, and diseased or injured fox is pure nonsense.

There is no fun chasing an old or sick animal who is quickly caught. Hounds will chase and kill anything, including pregnant vixens and even our pets, when their blood is up.  It is also quite despicable to even think about setting a pack of dogs after a creature who is too old or too sick to run away. And why would it be necessary in the first place? Foxes only live for a couple of years in the wild and an animal that is sick can be easily caught and either treated or humanely euthanised by a vet.   

Hunters also like to compare their dog-packs to packs of wolves. They pretend that the whole grisly business is nothing more than hounds emulating nature. Nature does not select specifically for a long chase, neither are wolves followed by people on horses, nor do they line the trail with supporters who cheer them on and keep an eye on the quarry for them, whilst preventing it from going to ground or escaping by hiding. Wolves most certainly do not keep terriers in little boxes on the back of quad bikes, nor do they go out equipped with nets, radio collars and spades. Nature determines the health and size of the fox population in the UK.

There are approximately a quarter of a million foxes in Britain, including urban foxes, and that number has remained static since records began. Like all predators, foxes control their own numbers according to food supply and habitat, they are not over populating and they never were. It’s worth asking why, if the hunting set is so concerned with the rest of us being overrun by foxes, that they go to so much trouble to build artificial earths to encourage foxes in areas where they are scarce, or where they can be safely killed out of sight of prying eyes. Pre ban foxes were imported from abroad when their numbers were so low that there were not enough to provide a day’s sport.  

Hunting can NEVER be acceptable morally or practically. Hunters don’t kill enough to be termed controllers and foxes don’t need to be controlled. Attempting to justify hunting by claiming that other methods of killing foxes cause worse suffering is simply ignoring the fact that foxes don’t need to be killed in the first place.

It is not entirely certain that the Tories will have the numbers to repeal the hunting Act and the Donoughue proposal is being touted as an alternative. This is nothing more than a Trojan horse which will reinstate hunting exactly as it was pre ban with no possible hope of prosecutions for cruelty.

It’s all smoke and mirrors, all designed to make us believe that hunting is necessary and humane animal welfare. Dr May had it right when he said  the only truth the hunters tell about hunting is that they enjoy it.