Fox Hunting

        Even if most farmers want foxes controlled, is foxhunting the answer? Is it as effective as the foxhunters believe? The Countryside Alliance believe that, yes, foxhunting is an effective method of control but concede “it is not the be all and end all” of fox control. It is obviously true that the breeding success of the species would be depressed by overcrowding, starvation and disease but it cannot be shown foxes control their own numbers at a level where no damage will occur.

        But those opposed to foxhunting do not say that foxes do not any damage but that fox hunting plays no significant role in controlling the fox population. Foxhunting merely produces an unnaturally young fox population and has no other effect on the populace. Dr Stephen Harris of Bristol University revealed that foxhunting kills around 2.5% of the fox population, which is between 12,000 and 13,000, each year. This seems a lot and in some ways it is, but fox population can survive an annual mortality rate of up to 65%. It therefore seems clear that hunting has no significant role in the control of fox numbers. In other words, 12,000 foxes die each year for no reason other that ‘sport’. A three-year study by Aberdeen University showed that even though there was no form of fox control , there wasn’t an increase in fox numbers or even in the number of lambs lost. This surely shows that the fox population would not explode if foxhunting was made illegal.

        While foxes may need to be controlled, foxhunting does not seem to be the way to do it. Its unsuitability as a method of pest control is backed up by another question: is it really humane? Over 200,000 foxes die each year by worse methods that foxhunting, but are 12,000 lives worth saving? Hunters argue that we live in a world where animals are controlled and hunting is a more natural method than snaring, gassing or mangling the foxes under car wheels. Thus, they claim, foxhunting has unique advantage where the fox is either killed outright, by being shot or by a quick nip to the back of the neck by the dogs, or the fox gets away totally unscathed. Banning foxhunt hunting would lead to an increase of control by other methods.  Hunting must be compared to the alternatives, such as trapping, snaring and shooting all of which are legal, already exist and are necessary. In the hands of experts, these alternatives would usually result in a quick clean kill but in the hands of the inexperienced, they can cause suffering. Illegal methods like gassing and poisoning would also increase.

        But what kind of pleasure can it possibly give to man to witness a splendid beast torn apart by dogs? Foxhunting is an inhumane as the now illegal pastimes of dog fighting and bear baiting. So why are these blood sports met with universal condemnation while foxhunting continues to find apologia? Foxhunting is not a form of control, nor is it meant to be. The argument that foxhunting helps control the fox population was recently invented to counter the protests of those who voiced the opinions of the inhumane ‘sport’. Thousands of fox cubs are orphaned every year due to foxhunting and the unlucky ones die of starvation or fall victim to another fox while those with better luck are picked up and taken to an animal shelter. The death itself , though violent and painful, may be quick but the real cruelty of foxhunting lies in the exhaustion, terror and trauma inflicted on the victim as no decent person would wish upon another human being.

         I feel that foxes do need to be controlled but after looking at all the evidence, I am even more strongly against foxhunting as it is an ineffective form of pest control and is little more than torture carried out by people as cruel as the sport. Livestock and game should be protected by better housing and not a pack of savage, bloodthirsty people on horses or foot and their dogs bred to tear apart their cousins.