Foxed!

I’ve avoided posting anything here for a long time about fox hunting: You see it would be OK if I really knew where I stood on the whole thing myself! As you all know I was born and brought up in the country, and have seen at close quarters the damage that foxes do to poultry. My grandfather and his father before him took the opportunity to blast any fox that wandered onto their land to kingdom come, muttering about good riddance, and vermin.

I grew up confused until I saw a fox cub up close when I was about six, and the ‘aww’ reaction took over. By the time I was sixteen I was a hunt saboteur, and did my best to disrupt what I branded as a cruel and pointless blood sport. In truth It became a bit of a game: us against them, like paint-balling or similar. We all called the huntsmen and women snobs and the followers lackeys, and the whole thing was simple and black and white. It was just as much about politics as cruelty.
Times change, I am older and the battle I fought as a teenager is, in theory won. The hunt with dogs to rip the fox apart is over........as I say, in theory. It has been replaced with the hypocrisy of the gun and bird of prey as the killing instrument, and no argument has been settled, just bitterness compounded. The hunt has changed anyway, the quad bike now shatters the country’s quiet along with the hunting horn, and all kinds of political extremists have become parasites on the backs of both the pro and anti hunting campaigns.

I now know many people who hunt, or have hunted in the past….it comes from riding and being around horsemen and women, and I have been at pains to point out that I have been a ‘Sab’ in the past, and that as far as hunting is concerned I sit on the fence: I don’t believe that killing any animal for sport is right, but neither do I believe in destroying rural ways of life for political gain is right either. In general the pro hunting have accepted me as an anachronism, a country born defender of country rights, who cant bring himself to support what they see as one of our important rights and traditions. I have to say that the anti-hunting friends I have are in general less tolerant of my mixed emotions, but I can see why: Cruelty is an emotive and very black and white issue.
I have sympathy for the argument that says why ban fox hunting when you allow sport fishing mostly because it’s a working class pastime with a massive voting lobby. But I also come down definitely against dog fighting, cock fighting, hare coursing, and therefore why can I not bring myself to smile at the end of the persecution of the fox?
Perhaps it in not fox hunting its self, but an ideal of freedom and choice that I support: Perhaps it was one tradition too far to feel easy at its destruction. Perhaps it is simply selfish, because I ride and feel empathy for those who want to maintain the privilege of riding free across our beautiful land.
The hunting ban as it stands today is a sham and political fudge. Ban it outright or let it carry on as it used to be........but don’t ask for my advice though..........
Lets not pretend however that those who govern us will have fox welfare in mind whatever they decide in future!