{"id":97507,"date":"2022-01-23T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-23T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/politicsuk.wpengine.com\/reference\/hunting-with-dogs-fox-hunting\/"},"modified":"2022-01-23T20:40:50","modified_gmt":"2022-01-23T20:40:50","slug":"hunting-with-dogs-fox-hunting","status":"publish","type":[5751,5604],"link":"https:\/\/www.politics.co.uk\/reference\/hunting-with-dogs-fox-hunting\/","title":{"rendered":"Fox Hunting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fox<\/span> hunting <\/span>is the activity of tracking, chasing and killing foxes, usually with trained foxhounds or other breeds of scent hounds. The hounds are followed by a group of horsemen and, traditionally, led by a ‘master of hounds’.<\/p>\n

Fox<\/span> hunting\u00a0 <\/span>has been regarded varyingly as a recreational pastime, a pest control measure, or a inhumane blood sport. It has been one of the UK’s most divisive political issues of recent decades.<\/p>\n

Attitudes towards fox<\/span> hunting<\/span> have traditionally been represented by three standpoints: those who wanted hunting<\/span> to continue in its present form; those who wanted it banned; and those who wanted hunting<\/span> to continue, but with regulation to mitigate its negative effects.<\/p>\n

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Fox hunts killed over 20,000 foxes per year prior to the 2004 Act.<\/p><\/div>\n

Foxes do not have protected legal status, so it remains legal for landowners to shoot foxes on their own private property as a form of pest control.<\/p>\n

Is fox<\/span> hunting<\/span> illegal? <\/strong><\/h2>\n

Traditional fox<\/span> hunting<\/span> was banned in England and Wales under the Hunting<\/span> Act<\/span> 2004.<\/p>\n

Hunting<\/span> with dogs was banned in Scotland<\/span> under the Wild Mammals Protection (Scotland<\/span>) Act 2002, but remains legal in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n

Prior to the change in the law brought about by the 2004 Hunting<\/span> Act<\/span>, the Burns report in 2000 suggested that registered hunting<\/span> pacts were thought to have killed between 21,000 and 25,000 foxes each year.\u00a0 The fox<\/span> hunting<\/span><\/span> season<\/span><\/span> in the United Kingdom typically ran from November to March.<\/p>\n

Despite the legislation in England, Wales, and Scotland<\/span>, there is evidence to suggest that unlawful hunting<\/span> is still an ongoing practice.<\/p>\n

Offences committed under the Hunting<\/span> Act<\/span> are prosecuted with fines of up to \u00a35,000, with hunting<\/span> equipment being confiscated or destroyed. Individuals refusing to comply may face further prosecutions including a custodial sentence. Animal<\/span><\/span> welfare<\/span><\/span> groups have called for harsher penalties.<\/p>\n

Legislation to regulate or prohibit all forms of hunting\u00a0 <\/span>with dogs is in place in many countries across the world.. Although hunting<\/span> with dogs is widely considered a quintessentially English sport, it is not though banned in France, and remains legal in a number of States in America.<\/p>\n

How many people have been prosecuted for fox<\/span> hunting<\/span>?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Data gathered by the League Against Cruel Sports found that by 2018, there had been 497 convictions under the Hunting<\/span> Act<\/span> in the UK. A further 47 individuals had received warnings for their involvement in fox<\/span> hunting<\/span>. In addition to this, prosecutions have been made under the Animal<\/span><\/span> Welfare<\/span><\/span> Act of 2006 which minimises the unnecessary suffering of animals.<\/p>\n

In November 2019, two men were given suspended sentences after dragging a fox<\/span> from the ground by its tail and releasing it in front of hounds.<\/p>\n

In spite of existing legislation, the 2018 hunt<\/span> season saw 550 reports of suspected <\/span>illegal <\/span>fox<\/span> hunting<\/span>. The actual figure is likely to be higher when factoring in unreported incidents.<\/p>\n

The prevalence of illegal <\/span>hunting<\/span> is widely attributed to the legal exceptions provided by the Hunting<\/span> Act<\/span>. Specifically, the Act lists nine reasons under which fox<\/span> hunting<\/span> may persist – the most commonly invoked being where foxes are posing a threat to livestock or where targeted land is owned by the huntsman.<\/p>\n

Hunting<\/span> of rats and rabbits is permitted, as well as the retrieval of hares that have already been shot. Critics argue that these exemptions provide varying channels through which to defy outright the ban on fox<\/span> hunting<\/span>, and to reframe illegal <\/span>hunting<\/span> as a legally justified pursuit.<\/p>\n

<\/u><\/u>But what about trail<\/span> hunting?<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Unlike traditional <\/span>hunting<\/span>, trail<\/span> hunting\u00a0 <\/span>is a legal recreational activity that has gained prevalence in the wake of the early legislative bans. Trail\u00a0<\/span>hunting<\/span> aims to ‘mimic’ traditional <\/span>hunting<\/span> by leading the hounds to chase a fox<\/span>-based scent across a fox<\/span>‘s traditional route. This is achieved by dragging a fox<\/span> urine-soaked cloth or sack along the ground. Much like traditional <\/span>hunting<\/span>, the huntsmen pursue the scent with the aid of hounds.<\/p>\n

While trail<\/span> hunting<\/span> reframes the focus from live foxes to fox<\/span> scents, the League Against Cruel Sport<\/span> views it as a means for hunting<\/span> to continue in clandestine. This was propelled into the public light in 2020, when an ITV webinar showed leading hunt figures\u00a0admitting that trail<\/span> hunting<\/span> is a “smokescreen” for traditional <\/span>hunting<\/span>.<\/p>\n

In October 2021, Mark Hankinson, the director of the Masters of the Foxhounds Association, was found guilty of encouraging or assisting others to commit an offence, following comments he made to around hundred people on a webinar.\u00a0 Hankinson was fined \u00a31,000 and told him he must pay a contribution of \u00a32,500 towards costs. In the verdict from Westminster magistrates court, the deputy chief magistrate Tan Ikram detailed that “in my judgment he was clearly encouraging the mirage of trail laying to act as a cover for old-fashioned hunting”.<\/p>\n

Following the hunting<\/span> ban<\/span>, certain hunts have been found capturing and raising foxes for the sake of chasing them – under the guise of trail\u00a0<\/span>hunting<\/span> – in later life. This was the subject of investigations in 2015, when 16 fox<\/span> cubs were found being held captive in a barn in Yorkshire.<\/p>\n

The League Against Cruel Sports is continually campaigning to expose and abolish trail<\/span> hunting<\/span> in all forms. Several animal<\/span><\/span> welfare<\/span><\/span> groups have called for hunting<\/span> measures to be better\u00a0 enforced, including amendments to the Hunting<\/span> Act<\/span> which eliminates all legal exemptions.<\/p>\n

The RSPCA has also called for a tightening of the existing legislation around fox<\/span> hunting<\/span>, including the introduction of an offence of recklessly hunting<\/span> a wild mammal<\/span>, introducing a tighter definition of hunting<\/span> to include ‘searching for’, and a ban on the use of animal<\/span> products for dragging trails.<\/p>\n

Should trail<\/span> hunting<\/span> continue, the charity would like all hunts to provide maps of trail <\/span>routes to the police in advance, and record all instances where hounds have killed foxes.<\/p>\n

Fox hunting – What are the arguments?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The principal exponent of allowing fox<\/span> hunting<\/span>, in its original form, to remain legal, has been the pressure group, the Countryside<\/span> Alliance.<\/p>\n

Opposing fox<\/span> hunting<\/span> are a number of leading animal<\/span><\/span> welfare<\/span><\/span> charities (including the RSPCA, League Against Cruel Sports, and the International Fund for Animal<\/span><\/span> Welfare<\/span><\/span>) operating under the umbrella of CPHA (Campaign to Protect Hunted Animals).<\/p>\n

Central to the debate around fox<\/span> hunting<\/span> is the tension between the anti-hunt<\/span> campaigners’ protestations of cruelty with the pro-hunters’ assertions that hunting\u00a0 <\/span>is an important part of rural life and tradition.<\/p>\n

The case for banning <\/u><\/u>fox<\/u><\/span> <\/u>hunting<\/u><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Animal<\/span><\/span> welfare<\/span><\/span> campaigners argue that foxes are often chased to the point of exhaustion, before being ruthlessly and purposely set upon by a pack of highly trained dogs.<\/p>\n

Anti hunt<\/span> campaigner point to medical autopsies which reveal that hunted foxes are not killed quickly, but often endure multiple bites and tears before their death. The RSPCA defines the practice as “barbaric” and “outdated”, noting that a multitude of animal<\/span><\/span> species<\/span> (such as badgers and hares) are also caught up in the <\/span>hunt<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n

It is also argued that the scent hounds are subject to poor and abusive treatment throughout their training process. There has been suggestions that hounds are culled if considered inadequate to the pack; be that due to injury, old age, or a simple lack of skill.<\/p>\n

This principle argument of animal<\/span><\/span> cruelty<\/span> has spun off countless sub-debates concerning what level of pest foxes are; what damage is caused by hunts to the countryside<\/span>; and what freedoms and liberties the individual has.<\/p>\n

The case for <\/u><\/u>fox<\/u><\/span> <\/u>hunting<\/u><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Proponents of fox<\/span> hunting<\/span> refer to the sport as an integral component of rural tradition and culture, and one which supports the cohesion of rural communities. In contrast to the claims of animal<\/span><\/span> welfare <\/span><\/span>campaigners, they maintain that foxes experience minimal suffering in what is usually a rapid death.<\/p>\n

Traditionally, some farmers have welcomed hunts on their land for their pest control functions.\u00a0 The tendency for foxes to kill young lambs, thereby damaging farm incomes, has also\u00a0 been used in the past as a justification to support hunting with dogs<\/span>.\u00a0 It remains legal for farmers to shoot foxes on their land.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, it is widely acknowledged that fox<\/span> hunting<\/span> is largely pursued as a past time. Captain RE Wallance, Master of Fox<\/span>-Hounds has made this explicit: “As I have said, we are not a pest destruction society. I would rather account for a fox<\/span> at the end of a good run than ‘chop’ it at the beginning.” A similar stance was taken by the former CEO of the Countryside<\/span> Alliance, Simon Hart, who indicated that he had never been happy about the reliance on the ‘pest control’ case.<\/p>\n

In the context of people pursuing a past-time, hunt<\/span> supporters<\/span> justify their activities on grounds of their right to liberty, on what is typically private property.<\/p>\n

Finally supporters of fox<\/span> hunting<\/span> state that it brings an economic benefit to the countryside<\/span>. The 2000 Burns Report estimated that there were around 700 jobs directly associated with hunting<\/span>, and 6,000 to 8,000 jobs dependent on it. The report qualified this by stating that “in terms of national resource use, the economic effects of a ban on hunting<\/span> would be unlikely to be substantial”, with the effects most likely to have dissipated within a decade, but that in the short term “the individual and local effects would be more serious”.<\/p>\n

We don’t hate fox hunting, we hate posh psychopaths<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n