Foxhunting: Pointless cruelty

national | animal rights | opinion/analysis Thursday May 04, 2006 09:33 by Timmy Nolan

Foxhunting is just as cruel as many outlawed forms of entertainment which involve violence against animals.
Fox hunters profess to be doing the agricultural sector a favour by hunting and killing foxes. The reality is that foxes are beneficial to crop farmers as they hunt and kill rodents such as field-mice and rabbits to survive. These “pests” are very often responsible for the destruction of crops.

The Irish Masters of Foxhounds Association (IMFHA) claim on their website that “Left unchecked, fox populations would expand and destroy the delicate balance of nature and cause widespread damage”. Hunters claimed that the fox population would spiral out of control due to the ban in Britain, but in 2001 during a year-long ban on hunting, due to foot and mouth disease, The Mammal Society of Britain found that fox numbers did not increase dramatically.

Foxhunting became banned in England and Wales recently. It is however still legal in Ireland. The big question is therefore if hunting should be allowed to continue. The main arguments hunters cite against banning foxhunting are, that foxes need to be killed to protect agriculture, jobs would be lost, the economy would take a downturn and that banning this hunting is against human rights. Hunters claim that they must control the fox population so that there is enough food to go around, that they are killing a number of the animals to protect the survival of the species as a whole. Generally when foxhounds are too old to engage in the hunt successfully they are killed. This fact alone should cast serious doubts on the idea that the hunters are trying to keep the fox population stable for any noble reasons or out of concern for the environment.

There is a viable alternative to foxhunting but since it lacks a kill at the conclusion most foxhunters object to it. This alternative is drag-hunting, in which a scent is spread for the hounds and hunters to follow. This provides the hunters with everything foxhunting does except for the result of a bloody and mutilated small animal. The goal in foxhunting is to kill the fox but many hunters cite the thrill of the chase as the main draw to their sport. Since foxes frequently attempt to escape underground the hunters nominate a gameskeeper whose main job is to block up any hole in an area that the fox is likely to try to use to flee.

The IMFHA drafted a code of conduct in 1998 to appease concerns Minister Joe Walsh had regarding the blood sport. According to the Irish Council Against Blood Sports (ICABS) this code of conduct has had very little effect on how the hunters conduct themselves. The code does indeed contradict itself in some key areas. For example earth-stopping which involves the blocking of escape routes for the fox “shall not be allowed for the sole purpose of preventing a hunted fox from going to ground” yet later in the document it is stated that it “shall be allowed”.

In the end, the only people who benefit from foxhunting are the hunters themselves. The only danger to agriculture that foxes present is the loss of the odd chicken or two. Foxes have been known to eat lamb but for the most part these are carrion. Many countries such as Switzerland and Germany have banned foxhunting and there has been no evidence of an explosion in fox population in those countries. The fact is that foxhunting is simply a legal form of animal cruelty.