Hunting with dogs

[YODA]

On another forum someone posted this - just about sums up the political / social side of the issue...

 

" I've lived in hunt communities all my life. And you'll tend to find that the most vehement anti-hunters are those, like me, who've actually seen the results of the hunt first hand.

 

Hunting runs alongside alternative culling programmes. Its effect in controlling the fox population is minimal. As for damaging the ecosystem??? What is artificially altering the natural growth curve of the fox population other than damaging the natural ecosystem. If you want to protect your chickens, spend more on enclosure. If you want to protect your sheep, put a Llama in with the flock.

 

Hunting doesn't exist to control the fox population. It is a totem of an outdated system. As for the jobs lost when the ban is effected, its about time the countryside alliance realised the direction of the new economy. Our agricultural sector is a lame duck. It eats up billions in subsidies and I fail to see why it is protected when mining, steel, fishing and manufacturing have all been subjected to the market.

 

What is so special about the country way of life that it receives all the protection when the urban equivalents receive none? What value do they add that miners didn't? Why, after the unions were clobbered and the collective power of the working man was crushed, do a tiny minority receive so much ringfencing?

 

I apologise to anyone from farming stock for my bluntness. I have nothing against you and was brought up around the sector. However, I resent the aesymmetrical way in which they are treated and I see hunting as the ultimate representation of that uneveness"

 

 

[TKD_McGee]

Ok thats enough I don't want to see anti-hunting propaganda from some site..

 

The fact is that is costs way more to make your chicken sheds or animal shelters predator proof (or buying a damn llama) then it costs to put one 4 cent bullet into a predators head. I think its ridiculous to have dogs tear up a fox, but I also think its even more ridiculous having a bunch of socialists going around telling everyone what to do.

 

I myself have Chickens and it is a pain in the @$$ to make a chicken house predator proof. Each predator has a different approach... weasil, skunk, fox you name it.. If predators are not killed then they overpopulate and go out of their natural balance of eating mice or what have you. When this happens they go and look for chickens or baby animals to feast on causing problems... if they are not hunted then they starve to death.

 

 

[YODA]

"anti-hunting propaganda from some site."

 

Nope - that's not what it was. I got it from a post on another martial arts forum made by a martial artist on a thread very much like this one.

 

Disagree by all means - but don't label a guys opinion as propaganda.

 

Like it or not - in the UK this IS a political issue. It certainly isn't a cultural or "pest control" issue.

 

 

[TKD_McGee]

Its a political issue in all countries that allow hunting.

 

Theres always some whining animal rights activist that lives in some big city (probabily never seen an animal before) that want to take everyones rights away. Most of these idiots don't even know what they are talking about or how to fix the problems. Propaganda like WWF (world wildlife foundation) and the Animal Planet spew out grow misfacts to gain support.

 

They would have you believe that a majority of hunters kill animals cut their heads off and leave their bodies just for a trophy. They would also have you believe that people kill thousands of beavers and make fur coats out of them! (Maybe before the 1950s but not now!) Only a very few elite people can afford to do this kind of wasteful stuff... still that is no reason to have the rights of everyone else taken away. I am not for dogs tearing up foxes either.

 

 

[YODA]

"I am not for dogs tearing up foxes either. "

 

We agree then

 

 

[Gloi]

Personally I hate foxes and I really don't care how they are killed so long as they are. There is no hunt in the area and though the local lads try and shoot them there is a lot of wet scrubland where they live and people can't easily get in. They are a nightmare around here and no matter how hard we try and keep our ducks and chickens safe they manage to get in and kill them. We had our last lot of hens killed two weeks ago and have only 3 left alive out of 20 with bodies and feathers left all over the place. And this wa in the daytime because we always lock them away at night. We are encouraged to have healthy free range eggs but trying to keep the birds alive is so hard.

[Jiggy9]

On 2002-04-12 12:17, TKD_McGee wrote:

 

If predators are not killed then they overpopulate and go out of their natural balance of eating mice or what have you.

 

In the short term - yes, but in the long term- No! As a result of low populations of their prey, they themselves begin to die out untill an equillibrium level of predator to prey occurs.

[TKD_McGee]

Yes you would think that naturally but humans have been added into the equation. Do you think a wolf or fox would starve or go out and try to find any type of food possible. I know that they would go out and try to find any food possible. So, they would start harassing livestock to feed themselves...

 

Its not like a predator is starving and they say: "Hmm... im starving.. but those animals are livestock so im not going to eat them.. ill just starve instead"

 

So when predator populations reach large levels, then start coming down from their natural habitat and into peopls ranches looking for food. When this happens people lose cows, sheep, chickens, pigs, llamas.. or any natural livestock that the may have.

 

So people shoot them to solve this problem, which keeps the predator levels down.

 

 

[Gloi]

In our area it's not like the foxes have any lack of natural food. The area is overrun with rabbits, I look out of the window now and the field is full of rabbits. It's like they just think 'I'm sick of eating rabbits let's go out and have pet ducks for tea tonight, and while I'm there I'll just have a bit of fun biting all the others heads off'

 

Last summer we had a hen which brought up a brood of chickens. When they were about 3 months old they started sleeping in the apple tree at night. I wasn't happy about this because I thought they should be put to bed safe in the hen house. So every night when they went to sleep in the tree I'd carry them into the hen house and lock them in. Then one moning when I came to let them out in the morning a fox had chewed through the hen hut in the night and got in and killed them all. I was so upset because if I thought I'd been helping them but if I'd left them in the tree some of them might have got away.

 

[ This Message was edited by: Gloi on 2002-04-13 12:59 ]

[Jiggy9]

See all the world problems would be solved if everyone just became vegetarian!

 

There would be no need for live stock - therefore eliminating the problem of predator food chains; since live stock production is a grossely inefficient method compared to agricultural food growth - all that extra land could be used to grow extra food, solving the problem of world starvation and then there would be no need to destroy rainforests for beef manufacture and hence global warming would no longer be a problem, and hundreds of endangered species would be able to continue their existance. This is obviously a crude explanation, however it can be accurately follwed and reasoned - Just I'm too lazy...

 

The world would be a much better place if people could just overcome their lust for meat!