On the eve of the start of UK Hunt Season, the London Telegraph’s ExPat Bulletin has a story that the number of hunt followers has increased since the Ban. read the full story here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/global/2008/10/31/noindex/fthunt131.xml&source=EMC-exp_31102008
Interesting!
Fabulous article. Thanks for posting. Interesting how much sales have gone up in hunt coats and appointments when other businesses aren’t doing so well.
I predicted this would happen. Lots of people are attracted to activities seen as badass or outlaw. Like the Harley wannabees. Now it’s happened with Foxhunting.
One time on FOL I wrote a post about how a “FOL Post From the Future” had fallen into my hands. By 2016 the Hip Hop crowd got into foxhunting big time because of its badass image and I posted the hunt report I found written in typical hip hop speak ("…the dawgs be dropping science, Yo…")
Reading the article makes me miss my Exmoor Stag/Fox hunting trips. We stayed at the White Horse Inn at Exford. I really gotta get around to calling the airlines. I rather fancy a Boxing Day Hunt in Wiltshire…
You know…it would be interesting to talk to people who have joined since the ban and find out what is bringing them into the sport. Is it because they now deem it safer to ride (a human “fox” would be less apt to lay trail in an area where riders/horses could get hurt), less blood and death involved (ie: the comment about not “waiting around (anymore) when the fox goes to ground” in order to dig it out and kill it which is probably witnessed by one and all) or has the sport evolved into more into the “recreational” zone so that people are more inclined to view it as more fun and less “wildlife culling”.
Dare I say – it may be that the “ban” actually ended up being a good thing in altering foxhunting just enough to give a “new blood” boost from those who had no interest in the “old” ideals of hunting (fox culling). From my perspective, most people are really just interested in riding out for a good time, to enjoy listening to the hounds run a line, jump fences (or not), and pig out at the hunt breakfast. How many were truly interested in seeing a fox killed? That may have put off a lot of people who are now coming out of the woodwork to support the new style of hunting.
Not bashing the old way…just looking at it from an American perspective of a modern foxhunter, and wondering.
[QUOTE=gothedistance;3620045]
From my perspective, most people are really just interested in riding out for a good time, to enjoy listening to the hounds run a line, jump fences (or not), and pig out at the hunt breakfast. How many were truly interested in seeing a fox killed? .[/QUOTE]
I have only gone foxhunting twice, but I have to say that those were really the things that I went home raving about! Plus the beauty and tradition of dressing up to go riding.
Some ride to hunt; others hunt to ride.
I think there is, generally, a lack of desire to impart, or learn, real hunt lore. Does the field recognize each hound by sight and name, know their breeding, who is the daddy and mommy. Do they know the calls and horn? Which hound leads, young entries, etc. Etiquette, over and above what to wear?
Do they understand the tracks of the fox, where he is likely to go, etc. There is so much more to hunting than “a dressed up trail ride”.
“Most” don’t feel the desire to learn more than to jump a fence and play the etiquette game. They don’t know the hound names, which ones are strike hounds, which are puppies (unless the are collared), good vs bad scenting days, etc. “Most” see little value in that info enhancing what is important to them: which is… hunting to ride, to have fun with friends, to eat, to socialize, to dress up and share their flasks with each other, to laugh, to gallop, to …just be out there, seen, and ride.
One must step up to a whip’s or a Field Master’s status before real hunt lore becomes both important and imperative. “Most” never get there.
Ya know, I was trying to find that post not too long ago but I couldn’t remember who had written it! I’ll go lookin’ again…
[QUOTE=Major Mark;3619947]
Reading the article makes me miss my Exmoor Stag/Fox hunting trips. We stayed at the White Horse Inn at Exford. I really gotta get around to calling the airlines. I rather fancy a Boxing Day Hunt in Wiltshire…[/QUOTE]
Strange coincidence, one of my earliest memories was accompanying a schoolchum’s dad, Jim Butcher a reporter for the North Devon Journal Herald, to an interview with a League Against Cruel Sports representative who was agitating to stop stag hunting. Only later did I find out my grandfather rode with the Staghounds when he was a youngster (he was a Brock from Bratton Fleming).
Hunting with Devon and Sommersett, and The Quantock in Exmoor is a visual treat. Storybook vistas, with hills, fields, and little country cottages arranged just so. The locals call nice scenery “Chocolate Box”. You stand on one hillside, and look across to the opposite hillside as the hunt plays out in front of you like a giant 3-D IMAX movie screen. And you gallop and gallop until you’re ready to just slide off the horse and collapse from exhaustion. No jumping, just running. Then the fog shows up suddenly and you can’t see 10 feet. You’re surrounded by voices, whinnies and hoofbeats. Very easy to totally lost. There are these trails going through the woods that are just big enough for small tractors and people. I swear it feels like a scene in Lord of the Rings. You expect Orcs to show up at any moment. I guess regular people do tend to look like Hobbits when you’re sitting on a +17 1/2 hand horse…
Almost all of the thrills of a “fox” hunt can be had with a drag hunt. Just the blood lust is missing. Killing an animal is not my thing, but knowing hounds and their skills, is. I’d like to think that people who go hunting would have a curiosity over time into what the hold is on hunting that makes people get up early, get cold and wet and still come home happily exhausted year after year until they are about eighty years old. It is 'knowledge".
I think it a bit of a stretch to assert that ‘blood lust’ is a necessary component for those of us who prefer live hunting.
My reasons for hunting center on the hounds and their work- pack dynamics, the teamwork, how the talents of different hounds meld together- no two hunts are the same. Good layers of scent for a drag pack can do some clever things to keep the pack honest and working- but for my money, even the best laid drag isn’t as good for hound work as hunting live.
Not dissin’ drag hunting mind you. It’s a little like asking me which kind of chocolate I like best:cool:.
I ride to hunt.
I am not staff nor will I ever be.
But for me, the new season starts in April, when we meet at the kennel to walk out hounds and play with puppies. I show up religiously, and know each hounds name (I still get confused on lineage). I help get them ready for the hound show, watch them grow up, and enjoy every minute of watching them develop from goofy, shy puppies into full grown young working dogs. All spring and summer I’m at the kennel first thing in the morning and it is the highlight of my day.
I don’t care if we jump, don’t jump, or how expensive my new jacket is. Traditional and clean turnout is important because it’s part of being a good horseman. It’s also out of respect for the landowner. I’d not show up to dinner looking like a slob and I’ll not hunt on his/her land looking like a slob.
My horse is healthy, fit and his tack is strong and well-fitted to him. He’s clean and tidy for the same reason I am.
There is no “blood lust” in me. I recently took up waterfowl hunting, and there is no blood lust there, either. It’s simply hunting.
I know the calls on the horn, staff and hound commands, and pay close attention to what the hounds and huntsman are doing.
The socializing part is nice, and there is nothing wrong with enjoying good grub after a day of hunting. It’s part of the social rituals, which are found worldwide.
But for me - it’s about the hounds, the houndwork and the unpredictability of a live chase. Nothing wrong with that or choosing to drag hunt. I’m glad both are available in the US and UK, and hope the sport continues to thrive and grow.
…sorry, “blood lust” sounds pretty awful. But if a drag is laid out in a foxy way, it can replicate quite well. I’ve hunted all my life on three different continents, done both live and drag, and am satisfied with a drag. There is still a lot about hounds and hunting to be learned.
As an outsider lookin in (I’ve only hunted with the Galway Blazers on holiday.) I would consider joining a drag hunt - I think it would be a blast - I just can’t bring myself to support live hunting as far as being a member of a hunt. I’m not anti-hunt - It’s just a personal thing for me.
So maybe there were a lot of people like me that once the hunts stopped live hunting felt the sport they’d always envied fell more in line with their personal values.
I think this is good news. I wonder if the ban will ever be lifted?
As far as our other discussion, I think it is interesting to suggest hunting is about blood lust. Two things in the media come to mind. I saw Joy Behr (Sp??) on Larry King joking about Sarah Palin, about how ridiculous it is that she hunts, like “who actually does that?” I thought “wow.” So there are actually people who think hunting is a weird anachronism. After 30,000 years that is what humans have come to think. Another was tonight’s radio show of “This American Life.” One scary story about a woman being attacked by a rabid racoon. (Actually scary, yes) But the thing about it was that she said at the end of it all she felt “like nature had betrayed her.” As if nature is this sweet little welcoming place where we are safe. She now sees rabid coons everywhere, but has she never thought that for most of human history we had active preditors all around us?
My point is, to see hunting as somehow injuring nature or violating one’s sense of decency and kindness is a viewpoint which is very divorced from nature herself. An active hunting culture actually preserves more space and viggor for the animal populations than a million city dwellers who abhore hunting and live in ever expanding urban sprawl. So to me, by participating in and supporting hunting I actually express my love of nature and litterally support the animal populations.
JMHO!!
I’m happy for England! Good for them! Good for our sport around the world!
But this conversation about live vs. drag? And blood lust!!! I think some of the folks who drag hunt are rationalizing thier version of what they want the sport to be…kinda like…oh I’ll only hunt if it doesn’t use REAL foxes or threaten them…Well…they use REAL fox urine to lay drags right? How do they get it? Is it a nice process? And if the hounds go off the drag onto a REAL fox line; do the hunts stop the hounds? I thought they always just go forward. How many of the field members really know whether it’s a laid or real fox line anyway? If they did go live; would you pull out or refuse to hunt? Rejoin them when they go back on the laid line?!! How do you discriminate what is or is not the live/laid lines? Can you tell? I dunno. Never drag hunted. But do you somehow feel superior to us live hunters because you alledgedly don’t harm foxes!!! It’s a false rationalization to me. Why not just accept that you ARE chasing as a sport. Well, the hounds are chasing; you’re just following to watch/listen/ride. Well…just my 2 cents!!
There is a name for this phenomenon. “Nature-deficit”. The more urbanized a population becomes, the less they know about the natural world. A lot of these kids are now grown up and have a completely distorted view.
http://richardlouv.com/
http://dir.salon.com/story/mwt/feature/2005/06/02/Louv/
I think it’s very sad. I’m glad numbers of hunters are on the rise in the UK.
I’d hate to see this thread turn into a “live” versus drag argument. They both have their place.
