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the conservatives have said that if they win the next election they will lift the ban on fox hunting, what do you all reckon, interested to see how public opinion on a football site feels.

From the subject, I hoped this was going to be Graham Poll's view on the matter. How disappointing...

I'm not sure reinstating it is a good idea, but then i think it was wrong to ban it in the first place.

To me it will always be a British Past Time which is why I'm not particularly adverse to it. 

Either way if its back or not, I doubt I'd be participating in it :D

My problem with it is the attitude of the stuck up knobs that take part.

They do themselves no favours whatsoever!

I don't think it should have been banned in the first place but it's been so long that I'm not bothered what happens either way now.

Apathy rules!

I can't see why anyone would bother with it, but it seems a massive waste of police time to enforce the ban (which is pretty much why they've stopped trying)

Do not believe in hunting with dogs.
Have hunted with rifles many times.
Im split.

Voted yes because it should never have been bought in in the first place. It was just labour being vindictive & trying to perpetuate their "class war"
Having said that It's not an inportant issue one way or t'other.

Where is the I couldn't care less option?

I think thats in the dont read the fucking thread option ;)

hunting with dogs disgusts me.as do all the bullshit excuses hunters made for the killing of  wild animals for fun.
fuck the hunters and fuck the tory party.

Unless your a fox of course.

Agree with that, it's not the killing that bothers me, its the method mainly. Blow a fox's brains out = fair enough if there is overpopulation, etc.

Chase it miles to exhaustion and let the dogs rip it apart for fun = cuntish. Especially is it is all done for "fun" by prize pricks.

Agree with batch and arriba. Dont like it and never have

It's only a fox... if they were chasing small children or something, i'd understand the outrage.

We did a study about deer stalking and hunting at school and more often than not sniping a deer would only maim it, it would go off and have a slow and more painful death. No idea if that applies to foxes as they are smaller and so maybe more easily killed.

Unless an animal is in captivity, it's pretty difficult to kill it 'humanely'.

Behave yourself, lynching people in the States was a "past time" should we bring that back as well?

Fox hunting is/was cruel and unnecessary.

I'm with arriba, Batch and DRS on this.

Agree it's not nice, but in nature animals are hunted by predators all the time, & dogs are predators.
I'd be more concerned about Bull fighting.

I see no reason why it should not be legalised again. It was only banned as a class issue in my opinion.

yeah but bull fighting isn't done in britain phil s.
people are still going out and killing foxes illegally, even though it's banned.these include magistrates and judges.also the police turn a blind eye because alot of the higher ranking ones do it aswell.
it's sick.yeah it's only a fox,but many are encouraged inot areas with artificial dens, because those cunts on horseback have already killed all the others in an area.hardly pest control.
 hares,and deer get killed for fun too.are they pests?
the toffee nosed bastards just think they have a right to do what they want, just because they always have.

why would labour have scrapped something, that would clearly lose them voters,just to create a class war?

I have nothing against blood sports although I cannot stand the majority of “hunters” and their overall attitude so if it pisses the feckers off I’m all for keeping it banned!

From where I'm standing fox hunting used to be a military training exercise. They no longer need to do this so they should no longer do it.

But yeah fuck the Tory party basically.

imho anyone who knows me, knows im against any form of animal crulety (but i wont go into that as im not a preacher)
but anyone who decides they want to go out and kill foxes (or any form of animal) for "fun" need to be shot.
*awaits the onslaught*

That is one stupid comparison.

Anyhow, everyone has their own opinion, like it or not, I couldn't care less!

Cruel bitch!

That's exactly the sort of idiot quoting I'd expect from a Tory voting, hunt sympathiser.

 :) :eek: :) :blowup:

I'm disappointed.  I thought this thread would have turned into a full on TEF brawl by now.

The Torys only want to kill foxes so they can use their fur to make carpets for their duck islands. FACT.

So the ban on fox hunting is cruelty to Ducks !

If you are a proper shooter..you would never shoot anything unless it was going to be killed quick.

apart from pleasing some people by allowing them to kill animals,why on earth should hunting be legal again?
we already know it has nothing to do with pest control.if it's not about the kill then they can drag hunt.
 and phil s i agree that the police have better things to be doing.if people stopped killing the animals then they wouldn't have to pursue them.(not that they do anything about it anyway)

Drag hunting should be banned too..............Didnt do much good for Danny La Rue!!

Barbaric blood sports have no place in a civilised society.  Britian became a better place they day it was banned.

Foxes have become a real pest, if they stayed out in the wild then fair enough, but they dont, shit on your front garden, pull the bloody bin to shreads, eat livestock and pets come to that etc etc.
I do not believe in hunting them with dogs, but have no problem blowing the fuckers apart with a rifle.

I am from an agricultural background. Me and my brother are the first Pullen's in our clan to not go into farming for years and years (Well, I know my dad, grandad and great grandad were).

Foxes can be a big nuisance for farmers (especially when it comes to chickens!!!) and if we have too many of them we lose a lot of what they munch on and on and on and on - the chain goes on.

However, the barbaric way those swines go about it shouldn't be allowed.

agreed 100%

have no problem with hunting with guns, so long as it's regulated properly

I'd like to see the foxes trained with firearms, and wipe out a few billion humans, that would solve most problems.

It was only banned as part of labours class war against the rich right!

The worst thing is the amount of time in the house of parliment that has been wasted debating this subject. Its a fucking fox a small usless little animal it's not endangered rare or speaicl it's a fucking fox. There are bigger issuies that effect us all but no our mps (while not fucking about flipping thier flats) dick about please left wing poor vegans twats and ban fox hunting a sport/indsurty that has been part of our countryside for 100's of years. Silly thing is fox's still die horrible deaths by being shot, gassed, snared etc all that banning fox hunting did was cause decent people to loss there jobs.

haha, this has been a very good debate so far, and as far as i dont agree with some people opinions i can respect them, i knew it was only a matter of time before someone gave some narrow minded bull shit opinion like yours.
your only a useless little human, your not endangered or special i dont see peopel trying to blow your brains out for shits and giggles. (and people who do get their just deserves)

what a croc of shit.
there were tories who voted for a hunting ban.ditto some labour mps who voted against.
also nobody had to lose their job as hunt could go on,it just didn't involve the dogs ripping foxes,deer,hares to apart after chasing them for miles to the point of exhaustion.

"Aa few as 400 jobs could be lost in the countryside if there was a ban on fox-hunting, the Burns inquiry is expected to report to the Government next week." The Independent, May 2000

"Reports at the weekend that 5,000 jobs could be at risk were the "worst-case" scenario tested by inquiry researchers. The Home Secretary will be told actual job losses could be even fewer than so far expected." The Independent, May 2000

"But quite a few people have said they are going hunting now because they can do it with a clear conscience as there is no killing involved. And every Boxing Day since the Act came in, hunts have claimed more people are going hunting. So what on earth is their problem? If more people are prepared to take part in cruelty-free hunting, it is a real indication that the Act has been a success." League Against Cruel Sports

Just to throw a few arguments out there other than "its cruel" and "no it's not"!

Although classed as illegal, fox hunting has never stopped!  The only thing that this ban did was to make the fox's life a darned sight harder.  There is far more shooting of foxes - and yes, poaching of foxes - than there has ever been, this has been proved by the fox hunting fraternity complaining that it is harder to find and chase a fox today than it was five years ago!  Fox hunting packs now have more subscribers than ever, try going down a road when a hunt is about, you cannot move for traffic - mostly 4x4's and quad bikes!  Don't anybody believe that just because the government passed a law banning it, that it no longer takes place.  It is probably more popular than ever!

sorry what?

Hey I was quoting ok!

ye sorry it wasnt aimed at you, its was a sort of rhytorical thought out loud.

Why foxes? Why not rats....they are vermin. Ratting can be done with terriers, all you need to do is get together as a group, have a drink, blow a trumpet and spend half the day running around the local tip. Problem solved.

Well in that case I'll just go and punch a few Scummers - take a rifle to a few of the fuckers - chase a few of them and then set my dogs ( if I had any ) on to them.  They're more vermin than the foxes but there are laws against it just like there are laws against fox hunting.
What makes it right for hunters to break the law but when we punch a Scummer we get nicked ( or decked if you pick the wrong Scummer ).
Its pure arrogance on their part. They are above the law. If we jailed a few of the fuckers then they'd soon learn. If the law is repealed then they can hunt but until then they should be hunted down and prosecuted like the foxes they chase. its barbarism pur ans simple whether its Labour, conservative, Raving monster Loony Party or whatever. Its bloodlust and its nasty and we should be better than that.

what if the law let u punch the scummer if you could prove that it wasnt your intent to do so therefore it becomes legal?

If punching Scummers could become legal on the back of reinstating fox hunting, then tally ho.

i think ur rather confused.

the fox hunting debate will never be met with agreement whichever way the law swings. its one of those things which depends on the environment u grew up in.

Grew up in Park South so foxes would be hunted and eaten. Scummers would be hunted and sorted. Simple.
I don't think I'm confused as one point I was seriuos on, the other facetious.

Humans hunt animals... some in less drawn out, painless ways than others. It has always happened and always will.

I live in the middle of the worlds biggest urban fox population, and they really dont cause any problems, you might get the odd bit of crap on the pavement, but nothing compared to what peoples dogs leave behind. They might have the odd chicken etc but that's nature, shooting them for supposed pleasure isn't ,end of.

I'd be more happy if the government banned ending a passage of conversation/debate with 'end of'... :)

I've seen where a fox has killed 50 chickens, not to eat but because it is in their nature. Shooting them for pleasure is NOT nature I agree, but dogs chasing them is nature.

Why do you need to argue something is natural or not natural? Surely you think its OK or you don't and that's your opinion and that's enough.

Culling the fox population, where there are too many of the fuckers is fine.

Posh twats, dressing up and riding roughshod over the countryside, with a pack of dogs, with the aim of running down a single fox so the hounds can rip it to pieces is barbaric.

Any 'sport' where the aim is to cause an animal distress is fucking disgusting.

They are sick cunts, the lot of them. When the original bill was going through the pro hunting mob stated that they only actually catch and kill the fox on very rare occasions. So that's the 'keeping the fox population down' excuse gone. There's better, more effective ways of controlling the fox population.

I loathe the twats.

I think that if you're going to condemn an animal to a horrible death then you should at least eat it.

sorry but i cant see how there is such a thing as cruelty free hunting,

When it is for food.

in my opinion thats still cruelty to animals, im not going to start getting into arguaments of ethical treatment to animals, but the reason i dont eat meat is because i dont believe there is an ethical/cruetly free way of killing an animal.

Because for the whole times homosapiens have been in existence they've eaten animals? Killing something is cruel, just by definition, but it doesn't make it wrong morally.

Good job you weren't born when humans were hunter gatherers then
Foxes kill other animals, so they are cruel ?

So the party who thinks it can make however many billions of savings in public spending with increases in efficiency also thinks that getting hundreds of toffs with horses, dogs, whistles, funny hats and jackets, is a good way of controlling the fox population?

the hunting for fun,hunting for food are completely seperate issues.
but if we are bringing the human diet into it,it could be argued that our bodies are not actually designed for meat consumption.so before the hunter gatherers which did evolove for sure.humans would have survived on a diet of fruit,berries. we need to cook meat to help it break down.
just take our teeth,intestines,diseases caused by meat consumption as evidence of it.more and more evidence is being found by the day that meat is bad for us.small amounts yes,but as a main part of the diet creates problems.

i know it's wrong to eat animals,but do it anyway.but i am 100% sure that humans will eventually go full circle and return to a mainly plant based diet,as the planet cannot sustain the current way we eat animals . it's playing a major part in destroying the planet.

For us to go back to eating just plants and berries, it would massive changes in social attitudes and international regulations, which are kind of inter-dependent anyway. Quite frankly, if we can't agree to reduce our chemical waste in factories, there's no way people are going to decide to stop eating meat to save the planet. People are selfish, and that won't change until the planet is way beyond the point where we are able to turn back

agree reeves.a pretty grim future ahead really.i reckon we'll all be long gone by then though.i think i should have said,if we are to sustain the planets existance,we will need to return to a plant based diet.
humans selfishness will probably be it's downfall though

Your right about farming animals not being good for the enviroment. If we didn't eat meat we would not need millions or billions of farmed animals, putting their methane into the air. 
However I believe we ARE essentially meat eaters/ predators which is why we have eyes at the front of our head enabling us to judge distance like other predators.
The other thing to consider in this brave new world of veggies is that too much plant material can cause flatulence. Therefore our increased farts would cancel  out the benefit of getting rid of all the animals.
The other point is that whatever we do, the planet itself will survive. It's the people & animals who live on it that will suffer. After a couple of hundred/ thousand years without humans, the planet will have absorbed the excess CO2 from the atmosphere as it has in the past

What is wrong with Killing animals just for fun? I've shot phesant I did it just becuase I shoot not becuase I like phesant in fact I hate the taste of game.

Foxes are really nasty, vicious animals that have killed pets of mine in the past so I'm not too bothered.

That's a good question! You know I can't think of one good reason why killing something for a laugh shouldn't be considered acceptable. Before reading your post I'd always felt a little bit guilty about being a meat eater, but now I'm think eating meats not enough for me! I'm gonna get me a gun and get a piece of that killing action. I might even just wound them, let them die, revive them and then kill 'em again!

what pets did they kill?

PetsWinPrizes?

Guinea pigs and loads of hens which weren't really pets but the way they kill them is still horrible, a lot worse than any fox being hunted.

How do they kill them then? I could be wrong here, but I've always been under the impression that hounds rip foxes to pieces? Unless the foxes kill the chickens by playing them Pink Floyd albums, I'm struggling to see what a fox could do that's worse?

They eat one, bite the heads of the rest and leave them to die which often takes a long time. Foxes are killed when they are caught and although the body is ripped to pieces they are already dead.

Surely the fox kills to survive. When the fox and his friends don a red coat and commands a pack of hounds to chase a chicken or guinea pig a few miles in order to be torn to death for a bit of a laugh I'll agree with you.

ive just noticed phil s's post rearding farting.fucking soapy tit wank.

Surely you don't actually believe that.

Seperating a chicken's head from its body is a slow death?! How are the foxes killed initially then? Is it Phil Collins albums?

Bangkok, I have actually seen it happen so yes I do actually believe it. You might think that's a myth but I know it's not.

Holy shit! It's true!

 http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_long_has_a_chicken_survived_with_its_head_cut_off

Thats a reaction of the nervous system. The chicken isn't conscious with no brain attatched to its body.

 :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick: :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick: :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

BWB, you really are headed for the stupidist post of the year here.

I'm not trying to convince anyone that fox hunting is good, I wouldn't even say I was pro fox hunting myself. I just know what foxes are like so I struggle to feel much sympathy for them.

Bangkok - they rarely survive longer than a few minutes but they do die a horrible death. It's probably something you need to see to understand.

I can see where Ben's coming from,
It must be true, it has a wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken)

As mentioned before it's the nervous system reacting, nothing more nothing less and can happen amongst all animals (I think). And I have seen it when my lunch had it's throat slit in a Thai country village.

I thought this was common knowledge, where do you think the term "running around like a headless chicken" comes from?

I'm not sure what your point is. I know exactly how they die and it's a horrible death.

You can lead a horse to water........................

I don't think you really get it Bankgok, if there are 8 chickens together and they see the others having their head ripped off and then running around for a few more minutes and know their next, do you think that's a nice death? Likewise if a wild animal killed your childhood pet would you think it's just natural and it has to eat or would you hate that wild animal for killing your pet because I think amost everyone would be in the latter category. So while I have no interest in hunting myself I do think wasting any time on preventing it should not be a priority at all.

I think fox hunters are like vigilantes. They've probably all been traumatised by the death of a pet at some stage and are now taking revenge. "This one's for you Mittens the bunny!"

You are quite right about foxes. If you have 50 chickens they will go after & kill every one, but eat only one. Foxes kill because thats what they do.
not just hunters, but all human beings are the same.
Homo Sapiens is the most dangerous animal on the planet.

If there were 50 chickens against one fox, why didn't they just rush him? It's like Eastenders last night. Nick Cotton with a stick against about 20 people. Just fucking rush him for crying out loud!

I'm just glad Homo Erectus is now extinct..apart from in Brighton obviously.

......but a pencil must be led?(HMHB)

This should be banned!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW-l7uwFmDI

we, as humans shouldn’t kill because we have a choice. foxes and other animals for taht matter have to kill to survive (they are known as obligate carnivores): we don’t. Animals can only follow their instincts but we human beings can think about the consequences of our actions. We can recognise the suffering of other animals and we can choose not to inflict it on them. But we choose to make then suffer coz that the kind of sick human race we are today

My personal view (call me ignorant if you will, I can deal with it) is that we're a cruel race and if we realised the consequences of all our actions then we'd live in a different and probably what many would consider a very backward world.

There are so many things we do that we shouldn't, we're using up the Earth's natural resources for convenience, pleasure and for the sake of it. Do many stop and consider where precious stones have come from when they buy jewellery? Does an illegal drug user consider where the profits for his or her use end up? Do people think shit, did this item of clothing come from a sweat shop? Where does the cocoa in my chocolate/coffee bean in my beverage come from and was it fair trade?

We're a cruel race and whilst we all have our causes we're all often very selfish and get away with it. As humans we often do things against our ideals (e.g. become a vegan) but ultimately it doesn't change shit. Like I said, if we all lived 'correctly' then I think things would be very backward.

I can see where your comming from, but its the whole 1 isn't going to change the world attitute that annoys me, ok they wont but they will make a whole lot of a difference, I for one try and make sure i know where my items of clothing of coffee of food has come from.
The average British meat eater consumes, in the course of their lifetime, 5 cattle, 20 pigs, 29 sheep and lambs, 780 chickens, 46 turkeys, 18 ducks, 7 rabbits, 1, geese and half-a-tonne of fish tell me that figure doesnt shock you.

That sounds like an ace banquet!

I seriously struggle to understand anyone who gets upset because we eat meat. Being shocked at non free range stuff seems logical, everything else just plain stupid!

780 chickens! Seriously, I reckon I'll do about 10 times that.

I think I must be over half a tonne of fish already. I'd be disappointed if I wasn't. Way behind on sheep though.

Lotto shirts were in all likeliness made in a sweatshop.

Where do you stop though is the point I was making Chubbs, is keeping tropical fish at home in captivity cruel? Would you swat a fly? Maybe you wouldn't do either but I'd wager most people wouldn't give a care about doing either and it's this varying degree of moral attitude which explains why most people eat meat.