by Andrew H Brown

Created on: May 25, 2010   Last Updated: May 27, 2010

Watching the TV news the other evening, I was intrigued by the fact that the traditional Boxing Day pursuit of fox hunting is still going strong with 200 or so meetings taking place (in England) some two years since it was banned there. Technically, it's still legal to hunt foxes, it's the killing of them with dogs that's illegal. Apparently, most of the participants follow a 'scent' laid down and 'hunt' that instead. 

So the question is: Does the sound of a bugle and a pack of hounds fill your veins with joy and adrenaline or anger and hatred?

I don't know about filling my veins with joy or anger, mostly my veins are filled with blood - occasionally diluted with beer, true, but blood nevertheless. Speaking of blood, foxhunting is (or was) classed as a bloodsport. That pretty much sums it up for me. The shedding of blood (intentionally) doesn't conform to my idea of sport. 

I could argue about the pros and cons of foxhunting till the cows come home - assuming the hounds don't rip them to shreds of course, but I'm not sure I could present a balanced viewpoint. I'm not sure there ARE any pros.

Oh WTF, let's give it a bash anyway.

Supporters will maintain that foxhunting is traditional, that it's been done for centuries. I suppose that's true, but it's only really been around since 1660 and the restoration of Charles II.

Riff-raff and plebs like our ancestors wouldn't have had much input into the 'sport' back then, in fact as far back as the mid-eighteenth century, the upper-class twits who partook of this 'sport' were being caricatured as "ill-educated buffoons whose sole occupation was foxhunting." So the class angle is nothing new.

Apparently, farmers took advantage of the hunt's willingness to chase down foxes and so save them the bother of protecting their livestock.
Eventually, when the aristocracy and landed gentry were a little thinner on the ground, people of a lesser birth were allowed to participate in the 'fun'. 
 
So much for tradition. If you can trace your family history back to Lord Chinless of Dim, then it probably IS traditional, but for the rest of us, it's not.

Another argument used to justify foxhunting is that it controls the fox numbers thereby reducing the effect they have on agricultural stock in particular, and wildlife in general.

I have to admit, it is a little harrowing to drive through the countryside and continually see the devastation wreaked by these blood-thirsty monsters. Why, it's almost impossible to have a

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>