Fox Hunting in UK Continues Despite Legal Ban

Last week-end, nearly 100 foxes were killed in England and Wales in 261 hunts, according to the pro-hunting Countryside Alliance. This happened despite a ban passed by the Blair government. Most of the foxes were shot, which turns out is legal, after being chased around by dogs and horsemen. The League Against Cruel Sports plans on presenting evidence that 4 of the hunts illegally had the dogs kill the fox. This is one of those cases where all the parties involved are wrong.

First off, the League Against Cruel Sports and the other anti-hunting groups are also up against the ecological constraints of modern Britain. Foxes are not endangered in the UK by any stretch of the imagination. They are also not a particularly helpful species, killing smaller livestock such as lambs and chickens. They spread sarcoptic mange as well as rabies. Forget the 700 years’ tradition in fox hunting with hounds – they are a problem in any agricultural setting. If they were not hunted, it would likely become necessary of control their population in other ways, such as gassing.

On the other hand, the Countryside Alliance engages in a rather nasty method of hunting. Unlike deer or duck hunting familiar to North American hunters, fox hunters ride after the beast, hounds nipping at its heels, until the animal is torn to pieces when it is too tired to continue running. One would be more impressed if the hunter could drop the animal at 300 yards with a single shot from a rifle. It would certainly be less cruel. Moreover, the hounds can spread their own diseases, e.g., hoof and mouth, while running all over the countryside. And foxes keep rats and other pests in check.

The real bad guys in this sorry tale, though, are the members of parliament who voted for this half-ban. Unable to keep their noses out of the business of the gentry and aristocracy (whose weaker members are usefully culled during hunts thanks to riding accidents), they passed this unenforceable law. At the same time, all they really banned was the part where the dogs kill the fox. Shooting it remains legal. As far as the fox is concerned, getting shot after an exhausting chase has the same practical effect as getting to fight it out with a pack of dogs at the end.

A better solution remains elusive. The cruelty that remains part of the British upper crust life-style will not go away because some bourgeois do-gooder bans a centuries old tradition. And the hypocrisy of the do-gooders further poisons the climate with their faux morality – when an animal rights activist turns down an anti-biotic because the bacteria have rights too, one will start to take them seriously. And the Blair government should devote its attentions to things like the National Health System, the abysmal privatized train system, and an exit strategy from Iraq rather than something so very unimportant as fox hunting.



© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.

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