Category: Euthanasia

Landowners scramble to suspend fox trail hunts

Good news for some foxes this winter.

Following the news that the police have launched an investigation into the activity of the Hunting Office after it was alleged that hunt masters had held webinars on creating hunting “smokescreens” to cover illegal fox hunting, there has been a mad scramble by landowners to distance themselves from the “sport” and either ban or suspend permission to use their land.

The Hunting Office, was established in 2005 after the Hunting Act 2004 was introduced, and is the administrative, advisory and supervisory arm of the six governing Hunting Associations. Their purpose is to “set and maintain high standards of conduct in the activity of hunting with hounds”.

Police are apparently studying two webinars allegedly showing leading hunting figures and retired police officers discussing ways to create a “smokescreen” around unlawful hunts and ways of avoiding prosecution.

Landowners & Local Authorities rush to suspend permission.

This has resulted in a scramble by large landowners and local authorities to either suspend or ban trail hunting. These have included owners of the Lake District National Park, Forestry England which manages 1500 publicly owned woods and is England’s largest land manager, National Trust and United Utilities and Natural Resources Wales. There are calls for others such as the Ministry of Defence (MoD), Duchy of Cornwall and Church of England to follow suit.

Local authorities are also getting in on the act with Peterborough City Council, Nottinghamshire County Council, Cheshire West and Chester Council and Cherwell District Council banning or considering bans.

Taking an eagle owl along can be a smokescreen for illegal hunting.

Trail Hunting.

The Hunting Act 2004 banned hunting of live foxes but did not disband hunting hound packs so the Hunts were able to continue their pastime by developing trail and drag hunting. Trail hunting is where fox scent is laid for the hounds to follow. Landowners license or give permission for trail hunts to take place on their land, but since 2005 there has been constant allegations that the Hunts use trail and drag hunts to cover illegal fox hunting. Allowing drag or trail hunting to take place under the law 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.

To make matters worse other loopholes in the law make it relatively easy to circumvent what has always been a farcical ban. Among these are:

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;

and “flushing a fox to a bird of prey” which allows a hunt to take a large bird of prey like an eagle owl 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”.

Temporary good news for foxes.

Although all these bans are good news for many foxes this winter there is no guarantee that the suspensions will lead to permanent bans as it will all depend on police findings and the Criminal Prosecution Service as to whether there has been any criminal activity. If not normal service will probably begin as landowners will insist there is no evidence of wrong doing to justify bans.

Meanwhile sixteen years on from the Hunting Act ban we will still be in the situation of the anti hunt lobby accusing the Hunts of illegal activity and the Hunting lobby protesting injustice.

Related Articles:

The U.K. Hunting Act 2004 explained.
Hunting with dogs and the “unenforceable” ban.
Boxing Day Hunts still attract crowds & violence.
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The Shooting of Harambe the gorilla

The shooting of Harambe the gorilla at Cincinnati Zoo in May 2016 on the premise that he might have harmed a human was a reminder that human life will always takes precedence over that of an animal whatever the circumstances.

Harambe died through no fault of his own.

On the afternoon of 28 May 2016 a three-year-old boy fell into the moat of the gorilla pen at Cincinnati Zoo in the USA, which at the time contained three gorillas. The two females were tempted from the pen, but Harambe, a 17-year-old male endangered lowland gorilla, was fascinated by the child splashing about in the water and went over to investigate. The screaming crowd of onlookers agitated and confused Harambe and he dragged the child through and out of the water.

Zoo officials were afraid for the child’s life and so the zoo marksman was called and Harambe was shot dead. Although the zoo was criticised for not doing more to save the child and Harambe, Mr Holloway, a zoo spokesman stated, ‘screams from the crowd further agitated Harambe and it’s a horrible call to have to make, but human life will always take precedence over the animal.’ The incident became headline news worldwide and caused considerable controversy and a year after his death he had become the most popular meme of the year with memorials held all over the world.

We prefer animals to entertain us rather than seriously conserve them

Harambe died through no fault of his own, but because he fell foul of our human precedence belief and because we like to treat animals as objects of entertainment. Had his enclosure been designed for the safety and interests of the gorillas over that of the public or better still excluding the public to allow Harambe and his mates to get on with conserving their species undisturbed, he would still be alive.

Hrambe the gorilla shot at Cincinnati zoo 2016
HARAMBIE R.I.P

If we can kill such an endangered animal as a gorilla in a breeding programme doesn’t all this make a mockery of our supposed serious intention to preserve animals for the future.

So the moral of the story is that although gorillas are sentient, are an endangered and protected species, are closely related to us and disappearing at an alarming rate in the wild and that Harambe was doing his bit for conserving his species by being part of a breeding program, none of this saved him or was of any consequence.  I suspect that even if he had been the last male gorilla on the planet, his life would not have been  considered more important than that of a human.  Animals will unfortunately always come second to humans whatever the situation or circumstances as we could never bring ourselves to perhaps save an animal at the expense of a member of our own species.

Related Article:

My memorable meeting with C.J. the Orangutan.
Abusing animals for entertainment is pure showmanship