Nothing will make it respectable to hunt
I FEEL much of what Points of view correspondent Giles Bradshaw writes about hunting is just a muddle.
It is worth taking a step or two back from what is happening in the field and thinking about what has happened in the public psyche.
There is now a huge consensus with over 75 per cent of the public believing that chasing animals with packs of dogs for fun is cruel and should remain a crime.
There is a growing recognition that those people who abuse and are cruel to animals are also more likely to abuse and be cruel to people as well.
No amount of back tracking on the Hunting Act or amendment to it is going to change that weight of public opinion.
The hunters are making a huge mistake in thinking that if the Hunting Act were to be repealed their activities would no longer be thought criminal.
As far as most of the general public is concerned, setting dogs on to any wild animals for sport is a crime.
No amount of fiddling with the law or even abolishing it is ever going to make their blood sport respectable again.
Kathy Moyle
East Budleigh
(by post)
Comments
by Keith Chadwick, Exeter
Wednesday, April 08 2009, 3:24PM
“As a non fox hunter but a shooter and angler, other interests that have attracted accusations of cruelty I have followed the hunting debate in the letters page with some interest and I feel some missing facts need to be considered. Foxes are very destructive animals and if we are to maintain the diversity of wildlife in our countryside we all love, fox numbers have to be regulated. I would suggest hunting with hounds is the best way to achieve this as hunting has a selection element that shooting, trapping or gassing doesn¿t, the fitter and healthier the fox is the more likely it is to escape. There is a lot of emotion expressed about hounds ripping the fox to pieces, I would suggest the fox is dead before that happens and their method of death is how most animals die in the wild. I¿m afraid Peter Rabbit doesn¿t die of old age in his rocking chair whilst reading a book.
So called conservation groups like the RSPB have actively encouraged the growth in birds of prey populations and they kill in exactly the same way. I have heard birds scream in pain and terror when taken carried away still alive and yet we are expected to marvel at the sight, why no letters on this?
Kathy Moyle in her letter E&E 7th April states ¿There is now a huge consensus with over 75 per cent of the public believing that chasing animals with packs of dogs for fun is cruel and should remain a crime.¿
This is most disingenuous. If you asked 1000 people the question in Birmingham city centre you may well get that figure, ask the same question in South Molton you would get 75% in favour of repealing the hunting act. In any case you have to ask the specific question, people are more concerned about the economy, crime, immigration, education etc, unless asked hunting isn¿t even a top twenty issue to the vast majority of people, what is happening in Eastenders is more important
The general theme of the anti hunting letters seems to be more about human behaviour rather than animal welfare. I read an article the other day that claimed 250,000 children in this country live with abuse or the threat of abuse, surely human behaviour, human cruelty, much more worthy of a letter than fox hunting”