Fox Hunting: Good or Bad

[Deathscythealpha]

This topic may only really matter to people in the UK.

If youve been reading the papers or watching the news latly, you may have seen articles or stories about fox hunting and other hunting sports. Groups of protesters want hunting banned as they say it is cruel and evil. But people from the country side and other rural areas dont want a ban, as it will effect there livlyhoods and otherways of country life in a bad way. Both seem to think they our going to win this aurguemnt as both have a big backing.

I looked at the situation with mixed thoughts. At first i was with them keeping fox hunting. It has been a way of life for many centuries now, and no one seemed to complain about it before. It had only really seemed that in recent times people who live in the cities (and have probably never even seen a fox and think of them as cute cartoon animals) have started to comaplain.

I voiced this opinion when talking with my dad, and he had nearly the oppisite view.

He thought it was a cruel way to kill an animal, chasing it halfway across the countryside untill it was to exhausted to run, then having it ripped apart by the hounds just for a couple of snobs to have fun.

My dads view effected mine greatly. I had never really thought about the fox itself. I put myself in the foxs place and relised how bad what happened to it really was. It was a cruel and malicious way to kill an animal, or any living thing.

But i still had my other view niggling away at the back of my mind.

I had seen more news reports now, and both sides were using their own propagander on people. Against Fox Hunting carried on explaining to people how cruelly the foxes were treated, while For Fox Hunting told of the plight of countryside people. My views kept wavering in between the middle.

An article i read explained how the hunting hounds were now being used in the aurguement. Hundreds of dogs would be shot as the people who run the hunts would not be able to look after them if hunting was banned. Is the death of hundreds of dogs worth it to stop the death of a couple of foxes each year?

The situation has completly baffled me now. For? Against? Each side has as good enough arguement as the other. The situation doesnt seem like it will ever be sorted out. So while im stuck in the middle, contemplating what would be the right side to agree with, i ask what is your opnions on the whole Fox Hunting Aurguement?

[ABDUR101]

Well, it does look and sound cruel. And it really is cruel to the animal involved. But culture plays a big role in things like this. =

To ban it would upset those who have done this for generations, even if it is wrong, they still remember their fathers and grandfathers doing this.

To not ban it would upset those who realise how much of a torment it is for the animal, which could quickly become the vast majority of people.

I support the ban on the outlook that it is very cruel to the animal, and has no real value. They aren't hunting the animal to live, it's just a sport, a very unfair sport. But then so are most sports, I mean, if it were to be fair, we'd have people hunting bears with daggers, not rifles that are capable of punching through metal.

[Rotis]

Oh, a-hunting we will go
A-hunting we will go
We'll catch a fox and put him in a box
And then we'll let him go
Hey!

Mm, any sort of hunting for sport is pretty damned vile when you think about it. The human has so much of an advantage over the animal involved that it's not even funny.
Then again, we've already killed/displaced most of the wildlife that originally ate the wildlife that we hunt, so we've pretty much fux0red up the food chain anyway :X

[Reno]

I'm against it, living in the countryside myself I know how damaging the foxes can be to the local farmers (their animals get killed on a daily basis), but I don't think that justifies hunting them down in such a cruel fashion... There are definately more reasonable ways to deal with the situation, for example, one of my neighbours invested in an electric fence over 2 years ago (it doesn't do any serious harm to the fox but keeps it away) and he hasn't had ANY fox problems since. If more people could do things like that then it wouldn't be such a problem, and they wouldn't need to hunt the foxes

I think the "Snobs way of enjoying themselves" thing is all it comes down to in the end, they are just making excuses to persuade everyone that they need to do it, in order to be able to keep having their fun, even though they KNOW that there are much better ways of going around the problem

[Ness]

I don;t care about other animals, but you'd better leave thoise foxes alone. Foxes are the animals of God! When all the humans die or leave the planet the foxes will take over!!!

[jazzyfox]

Uhm yeah, don't kill foxes. >.>

[Shadow_Blade]

oi...i think foxes are...sorta cute ^_^;...*cough*...

That's a tough situation. Both sides have their strong points.

[BlackRose]

"...because we've always done it this way."

Worst reason on the planet. The people will adapt... they always have. If they need to remove the foxes because they're a problem, i'd hardly think that to be the only way to do it.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: BlackRose on 2002-09-23 20:17 ]</font>

[Ness]

Send them here to America. We'll keep them as pets (or atleast I will).

[RavenTW]

I probably would too.

From what I hear, that hunting is just for some laughs and tall tales. If it were to get food from verious parts of the animal, and maybe the fur, then I would be for it. But if you don't do that, then that's just a waste of food and clothing, and another animal which could have helped somone later in it's life (it's possible!)

Oh, dang, transformer blew. Doesn't look like we're affected though