Sunday, January 21, 2007

Cruelty of Hunting Ban

Almost every 'Sunday' today had photos of a fox being despatched by a gamekeeper on a shoot at Sandringham. And they all completely missed the point - in their desire to embarrass Prince Phillip. And the point is that shooting is more cruel than hunting with dogs. Perhaps next week, there will be photos of a maimed fox in a snare. The millions who rejoice at the ban on hunting simply do not realise that their 'success' is to have increased cruety to foxes, rather than to have decreased it.

The fox that featured on the front pages today was lucky that it was immobilised by the shot, thus enabling it to be despatched by a blow to the head - albeit delayed by a few minutes. At least it did not escape and die from its injuries in three days time after unimaginable pain - as happened to a young vixen which lived in my mother-in-law's garden a couple of years ago. She had grown to love the animal as she watched it frolic on her lawn and was much upset by the fox's distress. I only realised what had happened when she asked me to bury it.

I can forgive only because they know not what they have done. In our world, so much suffering is caused by ignorance.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I so agree that ignorance serves to cause even greater problems, rather than bringing about a greater good. This is mostly evident here in America, where over-civilized city dwellers attempt to apply what they call 'common sense' solutions to issues about which they really know all too little.

Through their good intentions, these hyper-sensitive animal fans only tend to prolong game animals' suffering by preventing hunters from using proven hunting methods. If they could only witness how agonizing natural death is for wild animals, they would cry out for someone with a gun to put poor creatures out of their misery, rather than have them die from starvation, predaton or disease.

The idea that 'well meaning incompetents' can really screw things up can be applied in other situations. Anti-gun proponents, who constantly seek to eliminate violence by preventing people from posessing guns, only serve to cause the rest of the population to experience a distinct rise in violent crime.

Yes, there can be cited very few cases, although in statistically insignificant numbers, when crime rises in the presence of gun ownership. But there are too many clear cases of gun ownership being a strong deterrent to crime, corelated with abundant evidence of rising crime in areas where gun ownership is outlawed. Reference Scotland, Washington D.C., Detroit, MI., Chicago, Los Angeles.....the evidence, when approached with fairness in mind, sides with the idea that guns make people more polite...even criminal people. But once again, the intolerance of one thing (fox suffering and/or gun violence) can cause people to do things that actually increase the one thing they hoped to eliminate, when they take the wrong approach.

Another case in the US concerns the reintroducton of wolves into areas where they had formerly occupied, but had been completely eradicated. A governor of a western state (Idaho or Utah?) is now supporting a hunting season to help control the growing numbers of wolves, now that they have begun to return in good numbers.

Opponents of this measure support letting the wolves multiply uncontrolled. Reasons include the inhumane-ness of hunting, but I suspect the real issue is hatred of hunting/hunters.

So, if they succeed in preventing the hunting of wolves, the suffering will be extended to the animals upon whom the wolves prey, which unfortunately include PEOPLE, and their pets. Then those who hoped to protect wolves will find that the more wolves eat wildlife peole and pets, the more they will be hated, and then wolves will be once again driven from those states, for the same reasons they were a hundred years ago.

So let fox hunters do the best they can to end the lives of their quarry as quickly as possible. For without the hunter, the fox will populate the countryside in frightening numbers, eliminating all the small animals they like to eat, the same small animals the anti-hunting crowd like to watch. Then what will happen when the squirrels are gone?