(c) GETTY/Daily Express
The current legislation allows foxes to be flushed from cover and then shot but, in many cases, this relatively humane approach is either flouted or mismanaged with a Scottish Government review suggesting that around 160 foxes are brutally killed by the hounds out of the total of 800 killed altogether, every year.
The SNP national council has now shifted their policy to make the practice illegal and to limit the number of hounds to two. This may be a sensible and humane response which does not require a complete ban on hunting foxes as suggested by the Green Party. While I’m sympathetic to the Green Party’s plan, I’m not sure if a complete ban is required. You may know more than I do about this so do contradict me and explain why.
In England, the Tories plan a free vote on repealing the ban of hunting with packs of hounds altogether:
Is this just another of the many small ways in which Scotland is different and different enough? See this for a reminder of some of the others:
Talking-up Scotland 
I spent my formative years in West Perthshire and can assure everyone that up until 1953 foxes were not a problem on farms. Once maximatosis killed off their staple diet they adapted to a previously second choice of blackface lambs as the lambing season coincided with the birth of their cubs.
Chasing foxes with horses and dogs is the least efficient way of pointless culling them and only satisfies sadistic fetishes among
unionists.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yes it does seem like a kind of sadism. Tories often get exposed involved in both S&M.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/andy-mcsmiths-diary-no-shades-of-grey-to-tory-mps-sadomasochism-a6821891.html
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi,
I live on Bute, a number of years ago someone thought it was a great idea to introduce foxes onto the island. They have bred rapidly to becoming a huge problem, to the point that they are to be found in the town of Rothesay.
Bute was a super larder for them with huge numbers of ground nesting birds, rabbits, hares, and lambs! I heard of one farmer shooting 23 last years and there are many farmers on the island. The bird life is being hit very hard and now we get seagulls nesting in the town as they see it as a safer option to nesting in the hills.
Flushing on foot with two dogs and a shooter on foot is a sensible option for pest control.
Please anyone who thinks disturbing an existing animal ecosystem, consider the damage that can be the result of your actions.
Regards
Robert Liddell
Sent from Mail for Windows 10
________________________________
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks
Excellent point
LikeLiked by 1 person
The foxhunting debate is not about ‘pest’ control. As Robert Liddell has indicated, foxes are ‘pests’ only when the ecosystem has been unbalanced and, as he indicates there are practical ways of restoring the balance.
Foxhunting gives expression to a much more atavistic urge. I do not much like many of the attitudes and stances of the English philosopher, Roger Scroton, who is a keen advocate of fox-hunting, but, in his descriptions of the emotions it evokes in him, I think we get to the core of the issue. I infer a strong sensual/sexual/mystical satisfaction from his words. It is about exercising unopposed, uninhibited power (I was about to describe it as ‘unbridled’!) It is about an assertion of the power of a class. It is exclusive as evidenced by the uniforms and associated paraphernalia of the ‘hunt’ – the dining, the drinking, the balls, both terpisichorean and testicular.
LikeLike
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/andy-mcsmiths-diary-no-shades-of-grey-to-tory-mps-sadomasochism-a6821891.html
LikeLike
I read somewhere, many years ago, that “flagellation” was considered by continental prostitutes as the “English vice”.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, they like to be whipped into the chamber too
LikeLiked by 1 person
The 13 Stooges as well?
Aw naw! Surely no!
LikeLike
LikeLike
Saw these comments re. fox hunting from Chookie Buccleuch last week: Europe’s largest private landowner claims fox hunting unites communities
By Annie Butterworth –
December 1, 2017
EUROPE’S LARGEST private landowner has said fox hunting is an “important fabric of rural life” and wants to see it “thrive”.
The Duke of Buccleuch, Richard Scott, claims that the practice “knits” people together living in rural communities.
In 2002 the pursuit of killing foxes with hounds was banned in Scotland, however, dogs are still permitted during mounted hunts flush out foxes which are then shot.
The 10th Duke of Buccleuch – who owns an estimated 280,000 acres of land in Scotland – has said there is a future for hunting in the country.
Speaking with the Scottish Field magazine today (FRI) he said: “The local hunt bears my family name, the Duke of Buccleuch, and I’m privileged to be honorary master of it.
“Although I don’t hunt hunt any longer myself, I am very interested in it continuing to thrive.
The duke, owner of Drumlanrig Castle in Thornhill, near Dumfries, added: “I think it is such an important fabric of our rural life.
“It knits people together and I am thrilled that there are so many young people still taking up hunting as it is a wonderful opportunity to corners of the beautiful Borders landscape which people otherwise would never get to.
“It’s only on the back of a horse that you really get a true understanding of the lie of the land.”
Noticed this reply from the foxes of Scotland; “Dear Chookie Buccleuch – Get KNITTED!!” (Further thought – if the Hunt bears your name perhaps you should try being the thing that is hunted – How d’ya like them green apples??).
LikeLike