Wow, fab thread.
I have come to this late and as soon as I saw the title and 5 pages of replies, I though "oh nooo, I bet it ends in a raging argument!", but no, all parties have put their views across really well and tried to understand where everyone else is coming from.
I hunted before the ban, and I continue to hunt now the new laws are in place. I marched through London with the Countryside Alliance in 2002. I have seen, like Sammi, the effects of foxes on farming.....a chicken house with 25 chicken's heads bitten off, corpses lying everywhere and only one carcass half-eaten, dismembered new-born baby lambs....the list goes on.....
The reason healthy foxes are not targetted by the hunt are because they really do not present a threat to farm animals. They are swift enough to catch wild prey and subsequently swift enough to outrun the hunt. Injured and older foxes who are not swift enough to do this, must rely on farm animals who are cooped up and not able to escape their attack, these foxes are subsequently not swift enough to outrun the hunt.
I must ask, without any intention of offending or riling anybody, how many people who have replied to this thread saying "I respect all animals and all animals should be treated equally" or similar....Do you eat meat? Because if you knew how your Sunday roast was killed, or how your juicy leg of lamb ended its days, then fox-hunting would be the last thing you'd be worrying about.
I have been a vegetarian since I was three years old, and was a vegan for six years until I started eating eggs again. I do not agree with how animals are killed for the meat industry, I think there is far more a welfare issue there, than with an old or injured fox being killed outright by a gun or by a hound breaking its neck.
