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Post by chaz on Mar 17, 2009 11:46:34 GMT
This is more off a rant about how messed up some of the hunting laws are. If it offends anyone I will delete all that I say.
Lets get started with snares, the legal ones are free running ones, but to me this is more inhumane then the allready inhumane self locking ones, as a animal is not going to think that if I stay still I can get out as the snare will loosen, and if they do they will be very hurt and the pain could last even longer!!
Shooting foxes, this has been proved to be more inhumane then dogs as its hard to shoot a fox, as they are small and fast, so whereas dogs seem like they cause more pain they are quicker, but I seem to prefer Lurchers doing this, not just because I have them but people can put a single dog onto a fox and its over a lot quicker then a pack, most the time within half a field.
Birds of prey, now this again I think is messed up, how come a BoP can be used to kill a animal but dogs can't, and how big are the BoP that do this?
You can set two dogs after a injured fox but you can't hurt the fox to do this, fair enough but what happens if the shot you fired doesn't kill the fox, are you allowed to use dogs then?
Rabbits and rats are allowed to be hunted by dogs, but the grey squirrel is also a pest, how come dogs aren't allowed to catch them?
Do you think that someone needs to look at the ways of hunting, I mean its not nice, but people do want more free range animals now, if you have sheep your not going to want to have a load of rabbits eating your grazing, if you have chickens who can allready be quite barbaic animals you are not going to want any foxes nearby. What is your veiws on this, and what do you think is right or wrong?
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Post by micki on Mar 17, 2009 12:39:12 GMT
this is a tough one. altho i know we need to control animals we consider pests i dont agree with hunting with dogs, even tho i own a Greyhound which i have seen dispatch animals very very quickly. i think the reason i disagree with using dogs is due to the fear the "chased" animal must feel before being caught. hunting foxes with hounds proved to be ineffective as a form of control and was only used as a pleasure for "strange" people in red jackets. shotting if done well with a rifle sight is very effective so if needed this is the one id go with.
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Post by chaz on Mar 17, 2009 12:48:16 GMT
See I don't know about the dogs, as when I was at college my tutor said that there was a study done about fox hunting, which proved that guns were more inhumane but I don't know as 3/4 of the animal care lecturers did hunt.
I think one dog to one fox is allright, although when training (although my Diesel thinks that he is a world class hunter with no trianing lol) people use two dogs, the chase is bad, but it will be weighing up things, dogs do things naturally if they are bred that way, but how many stupid people are going to want to shoot things and cause more pain then neccasary?
With the fear of being chased though, could this not also be classed as a natural thing, I don't know what will kill foxes, maybe in the years that wolves were around they would prey on the sick I don't know, but when a predator is chasing its prey the fear will be there? Its something that needs a lot of thought though I think, as many people have unregistered guns and poach, so its never really known the bad things that people can do to animals to show off. Mind you that can be said about dogs to.
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Post by laplady on Mar 17, 2009 13:19:59 GMT
I agree with you 100% Micki, before hunting was banned I used to hunt once or twice a week, and talking to my farmer friends the fox numbers have risen, and causing more damage.
You see more urban foxes now, because its easier to scavenge from dustbins and people who put scraps out for them to feed on. The roll on effect is that that the rabbit and hare population, is on the increase, doubling the problems that they cause to farmland.
I,m not sorry that I was a regular Hunt rider, if caught the Fox is dispatched within seconds by the hounds, one thing I did disapprove of is sending a terrier down a bolt hole, my belief was if they are clever enough to evade the hounds then he/she should be left alone.
More foxes get away than are caught by a hunt, if you say its cruel please go visit a farmer in the spring when the lambs are around or anyone who has a smallholding, and see the damage and pain they inflict.
I know that there are fores and against but Please go on a hunt don,t just listen to here-say about what goes on, It annoys me when some one who has lived in the city and not ventured into the country all their lives make comments they no nothing about, or are not interested in finding anything out about how the farmers or anyone who lives in the countryside. and how they look after the land and the animals within it.
With the increase of rabbits and hares, the farmers who grow your food crops (vegetables) are all suffering as the crops are being ravaged by the rabbits and hares.
If the farmers cant grow enough, the knock on effect is more food has to bought from abroad, therefore putting up the price in our shops..
Should fishing be banned, is it not cruel to have a hook in its mouth and then dragged through the water by its mouth to the bank and have the hook pulled out !!!!!!!!!
Micki I think you may have opened up a can of worms here !!!!!!
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Post by chaz on Mar 17, 2009 15:34:52 GMT
I live in the country and I agree with you lap lady, also one of my old bosses has southdown sheep, and wanted to borrow Diesel to deal with a fox, as his dog wouldn't lol, I also use to work at a staff rescue, where someone asked to borrow some dogs as a fox had actually come into the house and killed her cat. I would like to start coursing with my dogs, but unfornatly have no one that could teach me, so I will be looking again in a few years, it will be a excuse to get a new dog Also hunting might stop another man made diesease like Myxi, I mean who knows what the future holds if Foxes are allowed to over populate, who knows how they would decide to get rid of them?
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Post by brandykins on Mar 17, 2009 18:49:54 GMT
I don't like snares of any kind!! Also, I am totally against fox hunting - and apologies if that offends anyone. To see a crowd of people on horseback and the dogs chasing a fox is cruel. It is the same with shooting birds - no sport in that at all. Foxes have just as much right to live than we humans have, same with rabbits and others.
There is a fox that stays in a large empty store (used to be a House of Fraser store) and about 5-6 pm it comes out from under the boarded up door and scoots across the main road, traffice stopping - and it runs like the devil over the green at Paisley Abbey. It is allowed to stay in the store as I believe it has cubs! I would hate to see anything happen to it. I know they raid farms for livestock - but then so do humans!!
That is my own personal feelings on this.
Good post, Chaz, and certainly thought provoking. Karma for you.
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Post by micki on Mar 17, 2009 18:59:23 GMT
now thats something to think about... we hunt various animals for pest control, they take our chickens and Lambs, they eat our crops etc... but at the end of the day humans are the biggest pest on the planet... we kill for the sake of it... we wont live and let live... we have destroyed so much natural habitat.. the list goes on. when i look at it this way i do question if i have the right to kill another animal.
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Post by brandykins on Mar 17, 2009 19:24:35 GMT
We just have to look at the decline in the numbers of the big cats - and look at some of the "trophies " that hang around the "big houses" !! Your words are so true, Micki, so very true!
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Post by herbiedog on Mar 17, 2009 20:00:58 GMT
I live in the heart of kent and when we were kids used to watch the toffs in their bright red coats drinking a toast at the pub so I am right in the middle of the hunt world but I hate it..sorry if I offend any one but I am so against fox hunting
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Post by Karen on Mar 17, 2009 20:37:18 GMT
I have to agree, that I am totally against any type of hunting - I am strongly against the dog ones aswell (which I think could of been banned) I don't see the need, that innocent animals should be killed for nothing!!
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Post by lynx on Mar 17, 2009 21:00:11 GMT
I used to hunt myself in my teens and early twenties. I went because my friends did and at that time because they all hunted and were older than me I thought it couldn't be so bad.
Then I started thinking for myself and never hunted again and if I got the chance I would join any anti-hunt movement. I would be proud to stand against people who hunt.
Foxes can be a pest but chicken wire is readily available. Foxes regularly run through our garden, I love to see them. Because of that we took special care to make the aviary safe and fox proof.
I believe I am right and If I am wrong I hope someone can put me right but foxes if left alone are monogamous. They only breed polygamously if their numbers are threatened. I think I saw that on telly years ago but could be wrong.
For me personally I hate the thought of killing any animal, be it snaring, shooting of killing with dogs or any other means. I know animals kill each other to survive themselves but you'll never teach them a lesson by killing them back if they hurt our stock.
It's up to us to keep out stock safe.
Good luck to your fox in the store Rose, I wish her well.
IMO no we don't Micki
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Post by micki on Mar 17, 2009 22:00:54 GMT
This is a good debate. ive hunted when i was younger with my ferrets on Rabbits.. i also enjoy fishing if i get the chance. but i couldnt just hunt for sport.
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Post by brandykins on Mar 18, 2009 0:45:12 GMT
Oh I went fishing only once and that was with a boyfriend and I didn't like to tell him I was against fishing! Anyway we went to Loch Lomond and he gave me a loan of one of his rods and he had already put a maggot or something at the end of the line, I threw in the line and after a few minutes the line taughtened, I reeled the line in and when it came out of the water a poor wee toty fish was dangling at the end of it and when I got the wee fish nearer me it had maggots coming out of its wee body - I threw it back but there was a problem with that - the boyfriend's fishing rod and line were still attached to the wee fish!! I often wonder why he never asked me out again!
Good point Lyn, plenty of chicken wire available now to keep out the likes of foxes. I hope too that the fox living in the building will survive. Sometimes, foxes come down to our houses and go round the bins looking for food.
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Post by chaz on Mar 18, 2009 11:43:21 GMT
Diesel feels that he is born and bred for foxes, his parents were used for fox hunting, and he starts making exciting noises if he ever sees one. He met his first fox totally by accident when he was four months old, we were walking along the track during the middle of the day, not when you would expect to see foxes. He got into a fight with it, and none of them were really hurt, the fox got hold of his ear, but Diesel did go straight for the throat. He was too young to do anything though. He is not trained and thats why even when asked I won't allow him to hunt. A dog should be trained by a professional or expericened person so that any pain is short lived.
Recently though again during the day I heard Diesel barking then he come across the field with a fox in his mouth, I don't know whether he killed it or not, the fox had one eye, the other one had puss coming out, it had injuries on its side where the blood had dried, and I could make a circle with my thumb and forfinger and that would fit across the animals waist, if Diesel did kill that fox I wouldn't feel guilty at that point at letting a untrained dog kill a fox. Its the same that I would allow my dogs to kill rabbits with Myxi, dogs can do it so quickly I find that more humane.
Myxi though is a strange thing, created by the austrailians, did you know that it was introduced here accidently? It was in France and was brought over by fleas on rats on ships, and started to infect the rabbits over here. But now farmers have been known to pick up rabbits with myxi that they see on the road and put them in their fields. Now if dogs killed the rabbits instead they could be fed the pests, contining the circle of life, the rabbit would not die a long painful death, and would not be wasted.
I just want to ask people do you think that free range and not hunting could live side by side? I mean foxes can climb and foxes can dig it would be hard to keep chickens sucure, my mate use to have pet chickens and just one night she forgot to lock them up, she left them in a run and that night a fox got them, which I know is her fault as she never put them away but the problem with foxes is that they wouldn't be so bad if they only killed to eat, instead of killing more then they need.
There are 3 farms round were I live, and they encourage foxes as two are arable farms, the foxes can keep the rabbit population under control, the third is deers, he is willing to accept that the odd fawn could be taken because of the fox there also keeps down the rabbit population leaving more grazing for his deers.
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Post by lynx on Mar 18, 2009 12:18:00 GMT
To be honest Chaz I think you can talk hunting issues round the clock. Both sides have quite valid arguments and the issues are not black and white enough to say one is totally right against the other. Animals do need to be controlled to a degree. I would always argue to let animals do this for themselves (because they do very well indeed, nature is truely wonderful) where ever possible. Most animals need control due to human mismanagement so should be done sympathetically and as an absolute last resort. Hunting brings out something odd in a lot of people which I find quite horrible. I listen to my heart and that tells me it is wrong to take a life be it human or animal. Why would I have a right to take a life of something living and getting on with it's life as nature intended. I would strive to save an animals life not take it.
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