I hate the idea of killing them! They really are a beautiful creature. But in the wrong place they really are a killing machine.
I was driving through our small wood back in June and there was a pair of very young cubs playing in the ride. I stopped and sat and watched them for a while. Lovely to watch, but by now they will be prefecting their trade. A trade they cannot be allowed to ply in my wood!
Yup, they need controlling and a clean kill is the way to do it. I also like to see them about in the countryside, despite the damage they can do. My wife was out walking the pup, back in the spring in some woodland, to suddenly find the pup was running in a pack of fox cubs, which is not something you really want to happen. She took her camera back to the spot to see if she could find them …..
" but its much better than them getting torn apart by hounds "
Sits on hands, sits on hands, sits on hands..... Having seen OUR guns take several bullets to off a fox in the past during a drive, actually I strongly say, in SOME cases both are effective methods. Believe me a pack of hounds take milliseconds too. Its just the phrase 'getting torn apart' that makes folks think its a bad way to go.
getting hit by a car and laying half dead half alive because that person hasn't the guts to run back over it and kill it outright is a bad way to go. A pack of hounds are thirty cars all at the same second.
Di
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The boys!
Read: Wylanbriar Dog Blog on the website: Updated! 1st February 12´!
In the last 12 months or so there have been three foxes shot in our main field. Me being the soft sod, burried them at the back of the field.
As JohnW and others have said, it's a sad business, they are wonderful creatures to look at but they are very destructive and can wipe out a season's breeding of ducks, hens, etc. overnight and even during the day. It's not very pleasant spending months rearing fowl stock and then finding them dead or missing because of a fox.
Last year a vixen got so brazen she walked through our front garden.
Foxes do keep the pigeons and vermine down a little but hens and ducks are easier to catch. Once the fox knows where the easy prey is they will keep coming back.
Also last year, in a space of a few days, we lost 12 hens and two ducks to a fox and they were taken during the daytime. I saw one of them taken in the field, the fox took no notice of me.
I don't take on 'rescue' hens to feed the fox.
Fortunately the chap who dispatched the foxes is very good at his job.
When hunting with dogs was allowed there was the occasional fox but since the ban there has been what seems like an increase in the fox population, it may not be connected, I don't know, but there are more foxes around here than before the ban.
Also, there are many more killed on the local roads these days than used to be.
Hi Lewis, As of 13th August there doesn't appear to be any firm repeal plans according to my updates and the CA website. I think a change of goverment next GE will bring about a formal repeal, and one the Tories have said they will take very seriously.
" Hague said: Mr Hague could not have been clearer about the law or his party's plans for it: “A Conservative government will give Parliament the opportunity to repeal the Hunting Act on a free vote and in government time. This has been our position, and it will remain our position."
So we can just make sure we vote with our 'x's on polling day and there might be a bit more progress. But nothing concrete it seems right now.
Di
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The boys!
Read: Wylanbriar Dog Blog on the website: Updated! 1st February 12´!
I got one the other evening. A neighbour told me to try and make a sound like polystyrene being rubbed against glass and the daft thing just came bounding out of the trees, down the field towards the bushes I'd hidden in.
Two double x magnum loads killed him cleanly/instantly (wish I'd put some ear plugs in though!), but like you I'd much rather the hunt controlled them. I would hate to have missed and left him wounded.
Yes polystyrene work's really well,
I use a Microphone on my phone with all these downloaded call's with rabbit's in distress.
Just sit it in the middle of the field playing, and bob's yer uncle
Right a question to you all.. My pal was out lamping and lamped a field where two vixen's and 4 cub's were hunting...
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She took her camera back to the spot to see if she could find them …..
