Category: Attitudes to animals

Information about our attitudes to animals and their rights

Hunting with dogs and the “unenforceable” ban.

The UK Hunting Act 2004 was never going to work.

Hare, hare coursing, illegal hare coursing, cruelty to animals, animal welfare
Watch out, there’s a hare courser about.

Whenever there is talk about the Hunting Act it tends to revolve around fox-hunting but other forms of hunting with dogs were also banned particularly hare-coursing. Fox hunts were not disbanded, but given an olive branch and allowed to flourish through drag or trail hunting and remain popular events with the public particularly the festive Boxing Day hunts.  Traditional fox-hunting with dogs is still legal in Northern Ireland and hare coursing events continue in southern Ireland. This has allowed hunts to continue to breed and keep their hound packs for the day traditional hunting is made legal again.

In the case of hare coursing, although there is an outright ban, there has been little protection for the hares as illicit coursing continues unabated  in some parts of the country, particularly eastern England and just like fox hunting the police and enforcement authorities have no way of stopping it even though they have more powers than for fox hunting. They have been forced to use hundred year old laws like the Night Poaching Act 1828 and Game Act 1831 to help combat it as the Hunting Act is so useless. Some Police authorities have stated that it is more prevalent now than before the Act with hundreds of dogs abandoned, injured and killed as a result. [More on hare coursing in a future post]

The Act was badly conceived mainly because the Government tried to appease all sides of the debate and did not consider the practical aspects which has made the law a bit of a farce and has resulted in some forms of hunting of foxes and hare coursing to continue.

Hare, hare coursing, illegal hare coursing
There is not let up for the poor hare with gangs of hare coursers roaming the countryside.

The UK Hunting Act 2004  is so complicated and full of loopholes that law enforcers try not to involve themselves in investigating alleged offences  because obtaining sufficient evidence to put before a court is costly, time-consuming and a nightmare. This becomes obvious when you read the various websites and reams of advice issued to try to clarify the subject .

So what is hunting with dogs?

The legal definition under the Hunting Act 2004 of hunting is:

  • to pursue or kill for sport or food;
  • to try and find by diligent searching and to pursue and capture;
  • to pursue or approach stealthily or to move silently through;
  • to drive (a bird or animal, especially game bird) from cover.

The Hunting Act 2004 describes 5 punishable offences:

  • Hunting a wild mammal with a dog;
  • permitting land to be used for hunting a wild mammal with a dog;
  • permitting a dog to be used for hunting a wild mammal;
  • participating in, attending, facilitating or permitting land to be used for the purposes of hare coursing;
  • entering, permitting or handling a dog in a hare coursing event.
A wild mammal is defined or considered to be a mammal which is living wild, bred or tamed; in captivity or confinement; escaped or released from captivity.

Basically on the face of it any live mammal is protected from being hunted or pursued by dog(s), but of course this would be too easy and so to appease the hunting lobby,  hobbyists and pest controllers there are exemptions which can be exploited to continue fox-hunting.

The “Unenforceable ban”

So it is legal to use dogs to hunt rats, rabbits and wounded shot hares, but there are several farcical loopholes that hunts can use to continue hunting almost normally under what is known as the “unenforceable ban” which include:

using 2 dogs to “flush a fox out of cover” to be shot by a qualified marksman if it is being done to prevent damage to property, food crops, timber, fisheries or biological diversity, but of course the marksman could miss and the fox escape with the trained hounds in pursuit.

“flushing a fox to a bird of prey“ which allows a hunt to take a bird of prey along and as many hounds as they wish to flush out a fox “for the purpose of enabling a bird of prey to hunt the wild mammal” as long as the bird is capable of catching  the animal such as a large eagle owl.

But the major loophole was allowing drag or trail hunting to continue, a situation that was always a recipe for future trouble, a fact well anticipated by the hunters. Allowing packs of hounds to continue careering around the countryside was always going to lead to confrontations with foxes and you can almost imagine the Master lining the hounds up for their pre-hunt pep talk :

“Right lads normal tactics today, you know the drill. Try and keep on track, but if you get a whiff of a real fox scent and happen to veer off in its direction do not make it too obvious lads as we will all be in trouble-know what I mean, [Wink Wink]”.

Hounds of course are not going to go against their natural instincts and sense of smell obtained over countless generations and many huntsmen are not going to pass up a golden chance to hunt a real fox when the opportunity presents itself.  Although it would be heartening to believe that not all Hunts participate in any wrong doing realistically many probably do. Everyone knows that the excuses that the chase was purely accidental or unintentional and the hounds were out of control are always going to be difficult to legally dispute. The act of hunting must be proven as predetermined or intentional which is difficult to show in most cases.

Anti-hunt saboteurs continue to monitor hunts

Many potential court cases are dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) due to what they view as a lack of tangible evidence and those that do reach court are rarely successful in regard to fox-hunting, but there have been many successful prosecutions for hare coursing. The Police and RSPCA do not have the time, and in the case of the Police, the inclination to keep an eye on the hunts which results in anti-hunting charities and hunt saboteurs having to continue monitoring hunts. This in turn causes friction leading to often violent disturbances. In practical terms it is impossible to keep track of the freely roaming hunts which are often held on private land.

There was a golden opportunity missed to completely halt hunting with dogs if the law makers had only banned drag hunting and the keeping, breeding and use of packs of hounds, but this was too easy. If the day ever arrives when hunting with hounds is made legal again, they will be ready and waiting to step in with all horns blaring complete with all the equipment and facilities to begin again.

Related Articles:

Hares beleaguered on all sides & on the run.
Hare Coursing – barricading the English countryside
Boxing Day Hunts still attract crowds & violence.

Fads and crazes: pocket pets and teacup dogs – we never learn.

Fads and crazes have being going on for decades beginning with the hamster in the 1930’s and now pocket pets and teacup dogs.

Whenever the pet trade and animal breeders feel that the market is becoming stale, they are very good at producing and introducing new fads and crazes to keep the gullible and fickle pet acquiring public in the mood for acquiring pets. This has being going on for decades beginning with the hamster in the 1930’s and now pocket pets and teacup dogs. The pet trade are very good at manipulating us by coming up with new species of animals to promote and sell by using social media and clever marketing to make the poor creature a must have.

Fads or crazes for a type of pet come along at regular intervals and many begin in the USA and are often driven by so-called celebrities who if photographed with a certain breed of dog immediately incite a rush to acquire the same.

We are also bizarrely influenced to buy certain animals by movies, particularly animated ones, when children badger their parents who disgracefully submit to their requests. We never seem to learn as back in 1980’s I remember the ninja turtle movies spawned a disastrous craze for baby turtles. The pet trade jumped all over this fad with a lot of help from the media, which resulted in coerced parents buying these tiny creatures to placate their youngsters , with no regard or common sense to their long-term needs and the problems that would occur.

I was working as an animal health inspector at the Animal Quarantine Station at London Heathrow airport at the time and saw these beautiful tiny creatures bred and shipped in their thousands arriving from the USA in aircraft holds. 200 writhing turtles were piled into each small cardboard box, and flown worldwide to meet the demand. Many died or were squashed en-route, thousands died after being bought and thousands abandoned into waterways to take their chances when they grew too big causing environmental and health issues.

In the late nineties we had a craze for chipmunks or small side-striped squirrels driven by the Alvin animated films and in 2010 a television advertising campaign incredibly led people to buy meerkats as pets.

In 2016, the US pet trade was boosted by two animated films ‘Finding Dory’ and the ‘Secret Life of Pets’ which ‘attracted the interest, attention and investment in both new and existing pets’ according to Euromonitor.com pet care industry reports. These films also show the draw of animals to both children and adults as they grossed nearly US$2 billion between them. The fact that we are easily enticed into acquiring live animals on a whim is frightening.

Pocket Pets

Pet rat, pocket pet, rat
Pocket pets is just one of the continual fads and crazes we insist on falling for regardless of the consequences to the poor animals.

Recently we have seen a fad for so-called ‘pocket pets’, their popularity spread by social media all around the world with the obvious consequences. Originally the idea was to market small pets like mice, rats and hamsters as ideal pets for carrying around in your pocket. Apart from anything else, this is an extremely unhygienic idea and of course cruel. It is not really a new fad, but a re-invention as many schoolkids have carried pet mice in their pockets for decades particularly to frighten their teacher.

The market for keeping once popular small mammals was declining and viewed by many as ‘boring’ so something was required to make them more appealing. This was achieved by re-inventing them as ‘pocket pets’.

At first the term pocket pets was restricted to small mammals such as mice, rats and hamsters, but unfortunately the term was soon hijacked and re-branded as any pet ‘the size of a pocket’. This has led to totally unsuitable pets being marketed with small exotic species like skunks, chinchillas, degus, prairie dogs, sugar gliders and flying squirrels and even tortoises and birds, obviously too big for most pockets.

Rabbits were also re-branded when their appeal declined due to fewer people having gardens and so they became ideal ‘house pets‘ and a craze for huge breeds of rabbit was born.

This has in turn created unsuitable and poor standards of care resulting in premature deaths, suffering and more discarded animals. As far as the pet trade is concerned, any animal species can be made into a suitable pet and so skunks have their scent glands removed to make them acceptable.

Designer Dogs

In the UK, whichever breed won the national dog show at Crufts became the must have dog, then we had a craze for macho breeds such as the German Shepherd back in the sixties when everyone was into guard dogs, then Dobermanns and Rottweilers and recently Pit Bulls and Staffordshire Bull Terriers that have become the blight of many parts of the world. But times change and with the help yet again of social media we have progressed to the recent fad for designer cross breeds with nonsense names and even more recently the French Bulldog has come to prominence with 10.5 million photographs of it on Instagram following its celebrity status with people like Lady Gaga.

Handbag and teacup dogs

Then we had a celebrity led craze for “handbag” dogs which were just traditional toy breeds, but  someone had to invent the fashion trend to carry them instead of allowing them to be normal dogs. Not satisfied with handbag dogs we have moved on to another new fad for so-called “Teacup” dogs.

At one time these tiny dogs only existed in natural form as runts of a litter, the last in line, the weakest and sickest which often died or were ignored by their mothers. The clue to the health status of these dogs is in the term runt, but somewhere along the line someone decided what a good idea to start mating these sickly runts by seeking out and intentionally mating undersized dogs and begin a craze for these ‘cute’ miniature dogs.

They are called “new breeds” but of course this is nonsense, but a good marketing point. The market is mainly gullible young girls and other ‘fashion’ conscious women who inexplicably feel they are a necessary accessory and part with hundreds if not thousands of pounds to own one. For every post on the internet advising against buying one there is another extolling the virtues of getting one.

Someone has even invented a standard for a teacup breed which stipulates that they must be less than 17 inches long at age one year and weigh four pounds or less to qualify. This immediately raises problems as there is no guarantee what size it will grow to when bought as a tiny puppy and possibly disappoint its owner. They also come with a never-ending list of health, behavioural and safety issues including being easy prey for hawks, other dogs and predators, being stepped on, dying from falls and requiring special feeding and toileting.

Despite all this it doesn’t deter people from buying them and it is the same for all the other unsuitable pets as well. We have little interest in the needs of animals and the repercussions involved only self-interest and so we never learn – we just move on to the next poor creature to exploit.