Speaking of things I do not get...
The members of the hunt had fortified themselves in the morning with two dozen bottles of tawny port, heavy trays of sausages and a good measure of whisky consumed from silver flasks in a frost-covered field. By late morning, they were giving the small animal chase with 35 bloodhounds, 31 horses, two ponies and more than 20 Land Rovers loaded with tweed-clad followers. The conflict began with animal-rights protesters who could not stand seeing foxes torn apart by packs of dogs. Last year, Mr. Blair's Labour government passed a law banning all forms of hunting with hounds, but the hunters, infuriated, have made it the upper-class election issue of the year and are threatening months of civil disobedience...Prince Charles, his fiance Camilla Parker-Bowles and sons Harry and William, avid fox hunters all, are staying silent as the master of their Beaufort Hunt has said foxes might be killed tomorrow by "accident." But Charles's cousin, Princess Michael of Kent, was more willing to speak out. "I can't understand how this old English tradition can be banned," she told a German newspaper yesterday. "You have to ask yourself seriously: Does this government really want to do things or is it more interested in class struggle?"From the Globe on today's start to the fox ban in Bwittin. The article has some very good descriptions of the actual state of "hunting" using SUVs and all terrain vehicles.
The idea that in a democracy you can still have landed hereditary meritless wealth like this having political clout of any kind is stunning - especially in the name of boozy recreation playing as if their wealth still depended on what the chickens were laying in the hen house. Weren't man-traps part of their tradition as well?
Comments
Hans - February 18, 2005 10:55 AM
Hear, Hear! Its rare when democratic atrocities align with environmental atrocities. A person can feel good about hating English aristocrats destroying nature for only the sake of their own leisure which the have by virtue of centuries of inherited thievery and oppression. Leaving aside the goods/bads about our own Atlantic seal harvest, aren't some of these upper class twits poncing about the English country side in their Land Rovers the same folks that villify and mock the scrappy souls who make the risky enterprise of hunting seals on the North Atlantic ice? Where is the outcry from the British public, the same one that effectively shut down the sealing industry? Why no posters for the foxes? Why no mockery of hunters?
Chris Taylor - February 21, 2005 3:38 PM
I'm okay with English aristocrats killing foxes. Presumably at one time they were a pest, and the sport gradually developed out of routine pest-control. Whether or not they should be publicly-funded is another matter. But if they want to go off and hunt foxes on their own property, and on their own dime, why shouldn't they?
Here in the city we have a few million unnecessary raccoons, and if they were to allow raccoon hunting on horseback with hounds, I'd be the first guy lined up to bag a few. There are some pests that need agressive control measures, and human hunting fits the bill some of the time. Maybe it's no longer true of foxes, but if it's private property, what business is it of ours?
Alan - February 21, 2005 5:50 PM
It does beg the question what is their property as these things are no doubt done on an estate where villages are leaseholds. The description of drunk toffs bombing around the countryside roads chasing the chase in cars is something we would never accept as a matter of public safety.
Also, the treatment of wildlife is something Canadians have worked though allowing trappers only devices that kill swiftly - being ripped apart by dogs is probably a little too man-trappy for most labour voters. You can apparently get around the law by shooting the fox, though I am not sure how the UK's stricter gun laws apply. I suppose there is something visceral about it for the labout vote who formerly were held in pretty much the same regard as the fox.