Saturday, September 18, 2004
Fox hunters fear cost of ban
Fox hunters fear cost of ban
Wed 15 September, 2004 10:18
By Patrick Chalmers
PETERBOROUGH (Reuters) - In pelting pre-dawn rain, dozens of foxhounds bay in excitement at the prospect of a day's hunting, their chorus drowning George Bowyer's defence of his daily work. As joint master of the Fitzwilliam Hunt, Bowyer is preparing to chase foxes around farmland an hour or so's drive north of London, a pursuit steeped in peculiarly English tradition. His grim mood is nothing to do with the weather.
Bowyer and six other hunt staff stand to lose their jobs and houses if MPs ban hunting with dogs in England and Wales, a plan on the cards since the Labour Party took power in 1997. MPs vote on a draft ban on Wednesday and are sure to pass it. Whether the bill becomes law is less clear but it could be in place even before the hunting season ends in Spring.
Though several countries hunt foxes with dogs, the classic image of scarlet-clad horsemen blowing horns and shouting "Tally Ho!" is the one of popular imagination. The Fitzwilliam has all of that. In cobbled yards set in 750-acres of park land, young stable hands load horses into a lorry also holding a third of the hunt's 100-strong pack of hounds. Novice dogs are mixed with older ones to learn their work.
It being early Monday morning and wet, only eight riders join the early season meet nearby, their aim being to kill young foxes or at least to disperse them from their home lairs. Only with the open season, which starts in November, will hunters gallop for miles across country behind hounds, jumping hedges and ditches in pursuit of their furry quarry.
The majority of Britons are still asleep as the party sets off, trotting along the edge of recently ploughed stubble to run the hounds through a small wood. No fox is seen. The hounds move on along a road, shoaling obediently around the huntsman's horse and sitting remarkably as one on the verge at his order.
The Fitzwilliam dogs have pedigrees dating to the mid 18th century, a line that would likely end if hunting is banned.
Huntsman George Adams scoffs at hunt opponents' idea that hounds could be found new homes in the event of a ban. "They are pack animals -- no way would they make a domestic dog," he said after the three foxes flushed out had all escaped. "People would be keen to have them but they would only have them a week or fortnight and would want rid of them," he added.
Hunting certainly stirs the blood, with supporters and opponents trading barbs about animal versus human rights, conservation versus cruelty and posh against the poor. The strangeness to foreigners of hunt rituals is probably matched only by Britons' unusually passionate attachment to animals, and their pets in particular.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) is one of many organisations that has welcomed renewed efforts at a ban. "This means the beginning of the end for this cruel sport," it said in a statement ahead of Wednesday's vote by MPs. "As an international organisation, IFAW is well aware that a hunting ban will be seen as a landmark decision for animal welfare around the globe," it added.
Bowyer, 39, says people used to know more of nature's cycle of birth, life and death in all its simple brutality. He said hunt opponents must understand the practice in that context. "Death is a dirty word so they have to disagree. The whole idea of death is just totally alien to them." Country people, farmers in particular, are not only harder nosed, they also reckon foxes are better off with hunting.
Adams said a ban would mean farmers shooting or gassing foxes to protect their lambs and chickens from predation. "Foxes would be far worse persecuted than they are now". But the huntsman, his accent like many on the hunt a far cry from the upper class tones opponents would assume, is downbeat. "The problem is we are the minority, country people. "I'm afraid it's urbanised areas that get the say about what happens in the country."
Wed 15 September, 2004 10:18
By Patrick Chalmers
PETERBOROUGH (Reuters) - In pelting pre-dawn rain, dozens of foxhounds bay in excitement at the prospect of a day's hunting, their chorus drowning George Bowyer's defence of his daily work. As joint master of the Fitzwilliam Hunt, Bowyer is preparing to chase foxes around farmland an hour or so's drive north of London, a pursuit steeped in peculiarly English tradition. His grim mood is nothing to do with the weather.
Bowyer and six other hunt staff stand to lose their jobs and houses if MPs ban hunting with dogs in England and Wales, a plan on the cards since the Labour Party took power in 1997. MPs vote on a draft ban on Wednesday and are sure to pass it. Whether the bill becomes law is less clear but it could be in place even before the hunting season ends in Spring.
Though several countries hunt foxes with dogs, the classic image of scarlet-clad horsemen blowing horns and shouting "Tally Ho!" is the one of popular imagination. The Fitzwilliam has all of that. In cobbled yards set in 750-acres of park land, young stable hands load horses into a lorry also holding a third of the hunt's 100-strong pack of hounds. Novice dogs are mixed with older ones to learn their work.
It being early Monday morning and wet, only eight riders join the early season meet nearby, their aim being to kill young foxes or at least to disperse them from their home lairs. Only with the open season, which starts in November, will hunters gallop for miles across country behind hounds, jumping hedges and ditches in pursuit of their furry quarry.
The majority of Britons are still asleep as the party sets off, trotting along the edge of recently ploughed stubble to run the hounds through a small wood. No fox is seen. The hounds move on along a road, shoaling obediently around the huntsman's horse and sitting remarkably as one on the verge at his order.
The Fitzwilliam dogs have pedigrees dating to the mid 18th century, a line that would likely end if hunting is banned.
Huntsman George Adams scoffs at hunt opponents' idea that hounds could be found new homes in the event of a ban. "They are pack animals -- no way would they make a domestic dog," he said after the three foxes flushed out had all escaped. "People would be keen to have them but they would only have them a week or fortnight and would want rid of them," he added.
Hunting certainly stirs the blood, with supporters and opponents trading barbs about animal versus human rights, conservation versus cruelty and posh against the poor. The strangeness to foreigners of hunt rituals is probably matched only by Britons' unusually passionate attachment to animals, and their pets in particular.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) is one of many organisations that has welcomed renewed efforts at a ban. "This means the beginning of the end for this cruel sport," it said in a statement ahead of Wednesday's vote by MPs. "As an international organisation, IFAW is well aware that a hunting ban will be seen as a landmark decision for animal welfare around the globe," it added.
Bowyer, 39, says people used to know more of nature's cycle of birth, life and death in all its simple brutality. He said hunt opponents must understand the practice in that context. "Death is a dirty word so they have to disagree. The whole idea of death is just totally alien to them." Country people, farmers in particular, are not only harder nosed, they also reckon foxes are better off with hunting.
Adams said a ban would mean farmers shooting or gassing foxes to protect their lambs and chickens from predation. "Foxes would be far worse persecuted than they are now". But the huntsman, his accent like many on the hunt a far cry from the upper class tones opponents would assume, is downbeat. "The problem is we are the minority, country people. "I'm afraid it's urbanised areas that get the say about what happens in the country."
