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Brit Hunting Ban Backfires
It’s been a while since we’ve visited this topic. Here’s the latest from the Yorkshire Post:
The law of unintended consequences is the curse of well-meaning lawmakers around the globe.
You set out with high ideals of achieving some lofty goal – and end up doing precisely the opposite.
So it is with the banning of hunting with dogs. Almost three years after the ban was imposed in 2005, the sport of fox hunting has never been healthier.
This Boxing Day more than 250,000 hunt supporters gathered at over 300 meets around the UK – the numbers apparently swollen by people who previously had no interest in hunting, but who now turn out in protest at what they see as an illiberal and nanny-statist law.
So those people who set out to destroy fox hunting have succeeded only in reinvigorating it. Those who wanted to save foxes from the hounds have engineered a situation where more of them are killed than ever before.
You'd need a heart of stone not to laugh.
I'm confused - if there's a ban, how do they hunt them then?
Posted by: Scrap5000 | January 02, 2008 at 01:27 PM
Scrap5000
I think the ban on Fox hunting is only a ban on using dogs. I think the foxhounds ran the fox until it couldn't continue. Then, the hounds tore it to shreds. I could be wrong. All I've got is heresay, but I don't think there was much left of the fox.
YooperJack
Posted by: YooperJack | January 02, 2008 at 01:38 PM
LOLOLOLOLOL, omg that just made me spit my coffee all over my screen
Posted by: Scrap5000 | January 02, 2008 at 03:50 PM
Scrap5000
I honestly think that's how they hunted them! I don't know, I'm drawing back a few years when they passed the ban. I remember that description from the news. That's why they called it cruel and inhumane. Anyway,I believe they can shoot them.
YooperJack
Posted by: YooperJack | January 02, 2008 at 05:27 PM
Nanny-statist law? Well, we've got more than enough of that crap over here. Especially here in the communist state of Illinois.
Posted by: Blue Ox | January 02, 2008 at 06:26 PM
I love the way the English have with words and their dry wit. That was an excellent article. Just think, we used to be able to express ourselves like that...tally-ho!
Posted by: John R | January 02, 2008 at 06:33 PM
There is a loophole in the law as undersdtand it. From what I hear you can hunt under the ban if the intent is to flush the game for a bird of prey. So, hunts now take a falconer with them in order to comply with the law.
Posted by: B.C. | January 02, 2008 at 08:28 PM
If only our hunters would come out in support like that.
Posted by: Evan V | January 02, 2008 at 09:06 PM
Just think, it's been over 200 years and now we're going back to England to find people with enough backbone to stand up to a government gone PC!
Bubba
Posted by: Bubba | January 02, 2008 at 11:48 PM
Before you get all misty-eyed for the stiff upper lipped British, remember this is the country that I believe recently banned private ownership of...swords.
Cheap samurai swords, to be exact. But still, you have to love the irony.
Let the Excaliber jokes begin...
Posted by: Chad Love | January 02, 2008 at 11:54 PM
YooperJack is basically right. Foxhounds were followed on horseback and on foot while they chased a fox. Sometimes they took the fox down outright, as described above; sometimes the fox "went to ground" in a den, after which the jack russels were sent in to help get it out. Once the fox was out the hounds were turned on it. More often than not, the fox got away.
This is the type of hunting covered under the British ban as is foot hunting, following packs of beagles and bassets on foot after hare. As i recall, so is coursing, sending greyhounds after hare.
No firearms are used.
In Virginia, where I make my home, we have more registered, organized fox hunts than any other state as well as a number of organized beagle and basset packs.
The fox hunting is a little different than in the UK as the practice of sending in the terriers after a fox has gone to ground is not normally done.
Right now the DGIF is doing a study on hunting with hounds and it is making a lot of people nervous. Just as in the UK there are those here who want to put an end to our sport.
Posted by: B.C. | January 03, 2008 at 12:14 AM