Is fox hunting really an effective form of pest control? Is there any good argument for allowing it?
The IndependentIs fox hunting an effective form of pest-control? The 2000 Lord Burns report, commissioned by the then Labour Government before the ban on fox hunting was introduced, concluded that the “overall contribution of traditional fox hunting, within the overall total of control techniques involving dogs, is almost certainly insignificant in terms of the management of the fox population as a whole”. It added that hunting with dogs “in its various forms” did result in the deaths of a “substantial proportion” of foxes but shooting had a “a much greater capacity to reduce fox populations”. As the League Against Cruel Sports puts it: “The suggestion that fox hunting is about ‘pest control’ can be dismissed very quickly by the fact that hunts have been caught capturing and raising foxes purely so they can then be hunted. “While the scale of this fox ‘factory’ was shocking, it’s not an isolated case.” Tim Bonner, chief executive of the pro-fox-hunting Countryside Alliance, put it rather differently, but made the same basic point that riding hunts are not about trying to reduce the fox population.
History of this topic
Hunting ban law ‘more cruel’ to foxes
The Telegraph
Fox hunting ‘driving communities apart’ in Lake District
The Independent
David Cameron reignites row over fox hunting as PM backs move to ease ban
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