by Dave Franklin

Created on: December 29, 2006   Last Updated: May 02, 2007

"The unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible" is how Oscar Wilde described the past time of fox hunting, and whilst Wilde's humour was ever based in rhetorical wit, his observation here is nothing less than accurate. Hunting has long been not only a tradition but also a necessity in times gone by, but there is some justification for hunting when the end result is a table to feed the household. But not only has the world moved on and the need to hunt for personal need is long gone, fox hunting was never about food anyway. Fox hunting has its beginnings in the Georgian landed gentry and was and to some degree still is a class-orientated activity. Whilst the people who make up the mechanics of the hunt may be working class, the kennel men, the tradesman, the various suppliers of goods and services, without the gentry and upper middle classes it would not endure. So if it is not comparable with more practical forms of hunting what is it about.

Participants will argue that it is a pest control. Foxes are vermin granted and do pray on farm stock, admitted and there are no easy solutions to the problem. Shooting is not an option as it relies on someone staying up every night to catch them in the act. Snaring is not an option as it is clearly inhumane and gassing is not a route that we want to go down again. Remember the effects on the rabbit population when this was used in the seventies and eighties, inventing and inflicting new diseases on the planet is not a way forward. But if none of these solutions are an alternative, does this mean that I'm advocating fox hunting. Absolutely not. Sheer economics are enough to show the stupidity of fox hunting. The upkeep of the hounds, the horses, the wages of the kennel staff and associated trades on one side hardly balances with the efficiency of the role as pest control that the hunts provide. The site of thirty equestrians and forty hounds chasing across the countryside in pursuit of, what's effectively, a wild dog, is ludicrous to say the least. And if it is, as the participants will try to convince you, a sport, then when the fox has evaded the equivalent of a small village on horse back and finally goes to ground do they send in fox terriers to kill the animal in its den? Not very sporting really, is it?

Another argument against its role as a system of pest control is the active cultivation of the activity. From the earliest times the landscape has been modified to encourage the growth of the fox population. Trees were

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