Hound�s chasing and killing foxes is obviously not natural behavior and a horrific and secretive ritual is taken place early in the morning (around 6am) every week from August to October. This is known as �cub hunting� and involves hounds being taken to a forest or cornfield, where young foxes are released as bait. The area is closed off by hunters so that if the fox tries to escape it will be chased back into the forest/field where it is ultimately caught and disembowlled by the hounds. Nearly half the foxes killed are cubs � a horrific end to their short lives. To ensure the hounds gain a taste for foxes in the first place, live cubs are thrown -by hunters- to the hounds, where they are eaten alive. Naturally all of this is done out of the public eye, which is why cub hunting takes place so early in the morning.
There are a number of excuses that hunters try to use to justify the killing of foxes by hunting. The use of hunting to control the fox population is an over-used and false excuse. Aside from the fact that the population of foxes does not need controlling, claiming hunting lowers their population is a false statement. Foxes are territorial animals and therefore compete with each other for mates/food � taking up a specific area of land. The amount of foxes in this area will not exceed a certain population and if one fox is killed then another will ultimately take its place. Killing foxes in hunting will therefore not be a long-term solution to lowering their population. Statistically speaking, roughly 2% of mortalities in the fox population are due to hunting, which is obviously a small amount and hardly capable of lowering any population.
It may be true that foxes enter chicken sheds and kill farmers� livestock, although the only solution to this is taking a different approach to the problem rather than killing the foxes, as they are territorial. The only long-term solution to foxes killing livestock is to use more protective and preventative methods to stop them actually getting into the chicken sheds, such as using slightly electrified fences and increasing protection around the sheds. This is not only more humane than hunting is, but would be a more effective way to prevent the death of livestock.
Another excuse made by hunters is that if hunting is banned, their hounds will be killed. What most people don�t know is that as soon as the hounds reach the age at which they are unable to hunt anymore, they are shot dead by the hunters at point blank range anyway � something which has been freely admitted. The movement of the hunt from field to field can sometimes result in the need to cross main roads, with the hunt on horseback and the hounds following freely alongside. This method inevitably leads to some of the hounds being knocked over by cars. In the unlikely event of them surviving this, they will not be sent to rescue homes, but again being shot dead as they are no use to the hunt.
What it ultimately comes down to is that hunters have a love for killing. They are brought up as children to do it � the smearing of blood from the hunted fox onto the child�s face the first time they take part in a hunt is a sick tradition unbeknown to most, and like most proceedings in a hunt, is kept a secret from the general public. Regardless of the secrets and false image the hunt try to give to the public, the majority of the British population are against hunting (around 80%) and more and more pressure is being put on the government to end this unnecessary and barbaric activity. The future is bright, and it seems inevitable that hunting will be banned as more people become aware of the cruelty it that entails. It is just a case of it being sooner rather than later.
