For Fox Hunting

First let me break with the traditional cry about jobs being lost or income or industry being affected in any way etc and that these sorts of things are a good reason to hunt foxes, bollocks. I do not believe that jobs should be kept safe or that we should furnish an industry if this means we would infringe on an animals rights ie cruelty to an animal is just not an option in my book. I also do not believe in some of the practices employed by various hunts to train their dogs etc. Its these things that need to be banned not fox hunting itself, but I digress. I just think that the points above need to be clarified from the outset. i also do not agree with digging a fox out or using terriers to go down after them.

Let me shed some light on some items:

1. Fox hunting is not as cruel as slaughtering animals to put meat on your table.
2. Misinformation and propaganda are the primary weapon of the activist.

Let me deal with point 1.

I was a poultry butcher for a year and we slaughtered in excess of 30,000 animals every day. I know most people assume that animals that go to the slaughter house are treated humanely. I disagree and I can speak from first hand experience. As an example; when the chickens struggled during capture it was not uncommon to break their legs in order to stop them from pecking the hands of the catchers. Its a bit of a shock to hear this isn't it?

Let me give another example.

Pigs. These animals are, on average, more intelligent than dogs, but we slaughter thousands every day for our bacon butties yet we abhor the thought of some culture eating a dog. Even the dumbest animal is able to associate the smell of blood with danger yet we cram pigs etc into slaughter houses where the stench of blood etc is overwhelming. This is the reason pigs become very agitated before they are slaughtered, they know they are about to be killed yet we ignore this and label it as humane.

Last year approximately 14000 foxes where killed due to fox hunting. Over 2.5 million animals where slaughtered today in the UK via various methods from local farmers cutting the throat of an animal to mass slaughter via, so called, humane methods. Believe me that killing a pig in the methods currently employed is not as humane as you would like to think.

The items above may have shed some light on No 2 ie propaganda. For some reason fox hunting has become the No 1 crime in the UK. This is due to political activism, propaganda and the sad fact that a good majority of political activists seek the limelight over what might actually be the correct thing to do. Rather than focusing on the big issues facing our animals and their welfare various sectors have chosen to chase the headlines while millions of animals suffer every day.

This is the ultimate in hypocrisy and anyone worth their salt who is willing to do a little investigation will see this.

But I digress we must of course forget the plight of the dumb pig and follow the media in the plight of the cute little fox.

Foxes are a problem in the UK and farmers lose thousands of animals every year. In fact more farm animals are killed by foxes than are killed by fox hunters after foxes.

If farmers are forced to hunt foxes using guns the odds of a fox surviving reduce dramtically. When a hunt takes place with dogs there is a good chance the fox will get away. If you use a gun there is little chance the fox will survive. In fact Scotland has seen more fox's killed since the ban than before because they are now using guns to kill them. This is another statistic people like to forget.

Now back to the point of fox hunting being cruel.

If you had a choice of the following.

1. You are chased for 20 minutes by someone with a Bow and Arrow and they have evey intention of killing you with it.
2. Someone has made a point of going out with a shotgun with every intention of killing you on sight.

I know which one I would go for.

The sad but immutable fact is that bannig fox hunting is not going to save the fox from some ghastly death which for the most part is a figment of the activists imagination. Humans on the whole have been able to invent much ghastlier ways of killing things than any hound ever will. I have seen plenty of animals take some buck shot from a shotgun and get away. God only knows what happens to this animal if we don't hit it first time. It probably lies injured somewhere and could die from anything as bad as maggots in the wound, to infection. This is of course much more humane.........

Remember that a hound weighs in on average at 60lbs and a fox at 14lbs, so this fabrication that a fox gets eaten alive or torn limb from limb is a bit of an exageration. The first hound to get the fox is more than capable and likely to kill it instantly in a single bite. Activists love to dwell on the dramatisation of "tearing to shreds" which they do do, but by this point the animal is already dead. I am quite capable of tearing any dead animal to pieces which is an unpleasant thought, but the fact remains that the animal is already dead and I am hardly being cruel to it.

It would appear to me that a ban on fox hunting is just replacing one recognised method of killing an animal with a more efficient method with no regard for how cruel or not either method happens to be. What we have is a bunch of headline chasers who are after the limelight this issue seems to shed on them and not much else.