“Giles Bradshaw is completely wrong. Foxes have no natural predators throughout their range. This is why any form of fox hunting is totally unnatural. Meat eaters never eat other meat eaters in nature.”

“I notice that John Bryant from Tonbridge is not only an outspoken supporter of the Hunting Act but also runs a 'humane deterrence service' for deterring wildlife that causes problems without killing it. His website uses the slogan 'No harm done'.

I cannot understand how Mr Bryant squares these two positions. I use a humane form of deterrence that involves the use of dogs to flush out and chase deer from my woodland.

The whole point of the exercise is to reduce the damage the deer cause without harming them.

Unfortunatly under the hunting Act this is only legal if the deer are shot dead.

Jim Fitzpatrick MP the new farming minister, who supports this legislation explains that the reason the deer have to be killed is to prevent people from using the law as an excuse to hunt them.

I wonder if John Bryant really supports this or if in fact he thinks it would be better if I was not required to shoot the deer that I flush out and chase.”

“Whatever the similarity or otherwise to 'natural' conditions, I personally agree with Giles Bradshaw that digging out of foxes is undesirable (not cricket!). I have always assumed that this goes on in order to justify fox-hunting as a control measure, i.e. if you are hunting to control numbers - rather than just for sport - then it makes sense to dig out and kill the fox if you can.

When we use words like 'natural' we tend to forget that we ourselves are a natural species. Most of our habitats, particularly in the UK, are semi-natural and have been formed as a result of the agriculture we have been carrying out over the last 10,000 years or more. Who is to say that we haven't been hunting animals like foxes for sport for much of that time and that their significance within the ecosystems they inhabit is not intimately related to that activity, along with all the other effects we have had and are having.

To justify a human activity on the grounds of what happens 'in Nature' - i.e. what animals other than ourselves do - is largely unnecessary. We are just as much part of Nature as any other organism. We should formulate arguments based upon a recognition of this.”

“Species in an ecosystem can be understanding as existing at different trophic levels. A trophic cascade exists where predators at one level suppress their prey thus increasing abundance two levels down.

A classic example of this is the action of wolves and lynx in suppressing fox numbers thus increasing abundance of ground nesting birds.

Studies of Eurasian Lynx in Sweden and Switzerland have proved that Lynx are significant predators of Red foxes. Indeed the Swiss studies in the Jura mountains showed that foxes were 5% of lynxes prey. Lynx were more abundant in Britain than wolves and had a larger effect. Small wonder that John Phelps and John Bryant ignore their effect. Wolves impact on fox numbers not only by eating them but also because foxes tend not to breed where wolves are present.

This effect has also been observed when badgers are culled because badgers and foxes have an intra guild relationship with badgers being dominant. The culling of badgers for disease control was shown to result in an increase in foxes of 1.6¿2.3 foxes¿km¿2. "Experimental evidence of competitive release in sympatric carnivores"

We know from studies that controlling foxes significantly increases the breeding success of ground nesting birds.

The increase in abundance of red foxes when their predators are removed is a phenomenon known as meso predator release and it causes a consequent reduction in biodiversity in the trophic level below the fox.

Elmhagen B, Rushton SP: "Trophic control of mesopredators in terrestrial ecosystems: top-down or bottom-up?" Demonstrates the increase in fox numbers following decline in the numbers of wolves and lynx.

This effect is further discussed in "Toward understanding the effect of top predators on ecosystems"
Nicolas Lecomte, Dorothée Ehrich, Rolf A Ims and Nigel G Yoccoz

As far as digging out is concerned I am not a great fan of it. However Wolves do dig out prey and would quite possibly dig down to fox cubs. Fox hunting actually has a closed season. When the hunt come on to my land I personally prefer to let them search for and chase the foxes with dogs but not dig them out.

From what In understand the Hunting act allows dogs to be used below ground to flush foxes to guns but not for them to be chased.”

“It is true that in a truly natural situation where human beings have not exterminated most large predatory mammals, old, sick, injured or unwary foxes would occasionally be killed by such animals. Indeed some fox cubs would have been taken by large avian predators such as Golden Eagles. However, this level of predation would have hardly touched the breeding fox population. The sport of fox hunting with hounds is completely unnatural and has been contrived to ensure entertainment for people on horses, not for the benefit of predatory hounds or for the control of foxes. In the unlikely event of a pack of wolves deciding to chase a fox, they would not keep chasing the fox until either it or they became exhausted. The fox of course would only have to run far enough to dive into its 'earth' where wolves could not follow. Human fox hunters have solved this problem by blocking up such refuges to prevent the fox taking this natural escape route, or by taking terriers with them to send underground to either keep the fox occupied until humans can dig out the fox with spades, or to drive it out for further hunting. Perhaps Mr Bradshaw could explain which natural predators managed to block up fox earths or which trained small animals to go down holes to chase out foxes!”