I guess I’m confused. I see people wanting to start foxhunting, which to me is a most cruel idea of fun that the British seem to enjoy. A pack of foxhounds wearing down a harmless fox and then the riders enjoying the scene of the hounds shredding it? What am I missing here? Isn’t wildlife harassed enough with hunters and their disturbing behaviors?
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are you asking about fox hunting in the US? Everywhere I know does a drag hunt.
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Fox hunting has been illegal in the majority of the UK since 2004/2005 (Northern Ireland being the holdout). Granted there may still be illegal hunts that take place, but like the US many people partake in the ride either following a dragged scent (called trail hunting on that side of the pond) or following a predetermined path without hounds.
Edited to correct year it was outlawed in the majority of the UK - Scotland was 2002 and England and Wales were 2004/2005
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Hunting (in the U.S. at least) is a very important part of wildlife conservation and natural resource management. In most instances, management agencies do not have the ability to fully modulate populations of species like deer, coyotes, game birds etc without hunters. If it isn’t your cup of tea that’s cool and totally understandable, but I wouldn’t call it disturbing either. It’s an honest way of getting food for your family. When I see people make comments like that it just tells me that they are very far removed from where their food actually comes from. Anyways, back to foxhunting…
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Drag hunts here in PNW, fantastic way to get out and ride terrain and have a blast. Even live hunts (when they existed) tried very hard not to kill the fox or coyote.
Hunting for game? If you kill it, eat it. There are more deer in the US than at any time in our history.
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I’m in New England. Most if not all hunts here are drag hunts. This doesn’t mean that a fox never gets into the mix, though.
As noted above, hunting (meaning, usually, gun or bow hunting) is an important part of US culture and helps with animal population control. In my state, the number of deer has doubled in the past 10-15 years, and the deer are not thriving at that density. I live in a semi-rural area with a lot of deer and no hunting, and have seen deer coming out of a hard winter emaciated and unhealthy.
You might ask that this be moved to the Hunting section of the forums, as this section is almost exclusively about showing horses in Hunters and Jumpers in an arena, which are very different from Hunting and don’t involve hounds chasing animals, or hounds at all really.
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Srsly? Have you ever been on a foxhunt? Bear in mind that there’s a whole section of this forum devoted to it…
No, most (even live!) hunts do not end with foxes being caught (much less “shredded”). Foxhunting in America today is more often actually following hounds chasing a scent (which has often been laid in advance) - the fun is in the chasing after the hounds, and watching them work to follow the scent.
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Your information on what happens while fox hunting now days seems to not be factual.
I am sorry that you have been given incorrect information and it is causing you stress.
Hopefully you can read up on how hunting works now days and appreciate the land conservation that most hunts are the reason that the conservation exists.
On the wildlife being harassed by hunters. I can tell you that the deer on my land are not stressed by the hunters at all. The deer seem to go about their normal life activities, even during hunting season.
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There are still many live hunts in the Us. However, it is not as the OP has described.
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Live hunting in the US is most accurately described as “fox chasing”. We don’t have the fox population of the UK so the goal is to account for the fox, put it to ground or, these days it often runs out of territory. Our fox population is also being overcome by coyotes in many areas, so the number of clubs that only run foxes has decreased and many run almost exclusively coyote.
There are drag hunt clubs in the US but they aren’t actually that common, it’s a real art form.
We encourage fox hunting because it’s a benefit to riding skill, and also because hunt clubs work diligently on preserving our outdoor spaces which all parts of the horse industry need to survive in any sort of affordable fashion. Hunt clubs are generally very involved in providing grass roots activities for all horse sports in their area, and both the sport of foxhunting and those opportunities give people an affordable way to enjoy horses.
That being said, many horse people also support responsible hunting of all kinds. Generally, the horse industry is composed of people with a country background who understand land and wildlife management.
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THIS
You’re much more likely to get the information you’re looking for on that forum.
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Actually, I think the topic here might do some good on dispelling the misinformation that the poster believes. The hunting forum isn’t super active, and this OP can’t be the only one here laboring under some misconceptions.
I’m happy to talk about how I think hunting benefits my students for showing, as it did most of our industries older riders and riders of the past. Certainly many of the current eventing professionals hunt, and a few of our current hunter or jumper professionals and amateurs get out at least occasionally.
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In my part of the USA fox hunting should really be named coyote hunting. The landowners often asked that we hunt over their farms when they were losing animals to coyote.
The sport is the chase. Fox hunters bought and introduced coyotes to the southeastern United States in the 1950’s. Little did they know that coyotes would ultimately take over the fox niche on the land. And by fox hunters I do not particularly mean mounted hunts.
I first went fox hunting with my grandfather around 1955. It was his friends and their mingled pack of hounds, and not a single horse and rider. We followed the pack along the dirt roads in cars and just listened and hoped for a glimpse at some point. They could identify their hounds by sound. Many unmounted hunters back then had ear trumpets to aid in hearing. Our hunt had a non-riding “road whip” who used an electronic version.
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@LeatherLover if fox hunting isn’t for you, that’s totally fine. But fox hunting is not anything like how you describe it, so you are doing the right thing to ask and learn more. Even for live hunts, actually catching the quarry (whether it is a fox or in the US most commonly a coyote) is extremely unusual. Foxes make a quick circle, lose the hounds, and then relax. Coyote are quite a bit faster than hounds and tend to slip away and disappear well ahead of the hounds.
Here in the US, fox hunting involves a lot of land and habitat preservation. My own hunt supports the preservation of over a thousand acres of wildlife habitat in my area. We also hunt in areas that have cattle and sheep farming, where we discourage and annoy coyote that are preying on livestock, reducing the amount of trapping and shooting that would otherwise take place.
I think you might be surprised if you got to know people in the fox hunting world. We are animal lovers, farm owners, people who are active in animal rescue, and people who are boots on the ground involved in habitat preservation.
If you are an animal lover/animal rights activist, you would naturally want to focus your energies on the tremendous losses of wildlife due to loss of habitat resulting from relentless development of open spaces as well as losses due to traffic.
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Fox hunting with hounds is banned in the UK and has been for years. Drag hunts are allowed though the anti hunt groups believe that this is merely a shield for foxes being hunted. Some prosecutions have been successful. Drag hunts are slowly being prevented from using most crown lands and I suspect will eventually end in the UK. There are fox hunts in Virginia that do chase foxes (and sometimes coyotes by mistake). They claim they just chase and don’t kill the foxes. There is an argument that the mere act of chase is extremely harmful to the fox since it depletes energy it needs for hunting and living. You have to figure out how comfortable you are with chasing an animal that doesn’t know that this is “fun” and is, in fact, running for its life. There are tons of examples of human and animal interaction that is harmful to the animals but I doubt if you’d find a lot of folks on this forum supporting a view of “no harm to animals” since we all ride horses. Again, some groups argue that riding and showing horses is inherently harmful to the well being of the animal. I don’t know, it’s a hard thing to rationalize because horses are so loveable and enrich my life so much though I don’t hunt my horses.
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I’m hardly far removed from my food sources. What I am, is a lifelong country dweller 67 years, who has yet to see any negative interactions with wildlife toward my dogs, cats, horses, etc. I live in an area where it’s not unusual to see 8-10 hunters all hunting the same 60 acres, sitting out in their stands, etc, shooting anything that walks by, raccoon, coyote, bobcat, etc, poaching is famous here. I walk the fields and see illegal baiting stations, deer carcasses 12 months of the year, body parts dumped all over the country side from field dressing. Then there are the pseudo hunters that lease ground and practically shoot anything or anyone that moves. So, my experience with hunters and trappers is front and center. MY POST is referring to the article on the COTH Home page advertising a “Yellowstone style” fox hunt. Why in the hell do we need to encourage more cruelty toward wildlife.
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“See the article on the coth home page regarding a Yellowstone style fox hunt”. That is what my post is in reference to.
Where on earth do you think Hunter/jumper competitions originated from?
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I think you are kidding yourself to assume that the vast majority of people who hunt, abide by the “season”, nor most any facet that is supposed to attach to ethical hunting. I’m in the Midwest, where everyone is killing everything they see, just for the fun of it. To think conservation and DNR organizations represent an honest evaluation of who’s doing what, is just embracing the same old cliches from the past. There is no control nor conservation exercises in my area. I ride with a woman’s trail group and can honestly say, all of us feel, if hunters disappeared the world would be a nicer place.
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You are kidding yourself to assume that your negative experiences with hunters applies to every other hunting person everywhere.
There are bad hunters, sure. I am not going to deny there are people who do not follow the rules. Just like there are people who do not follow basically every other rule in the world.
But, it is not the vast majority at all.
You should feel lucky!
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