• Sylvain PEUCHMAURD
• Dec 22, 2023 Updated 28 min ago
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• https://www.kpvi.com/news/national_news/saboteurs-try-to-outfox-hunters-in-englands-countryside/article_f9d1e473-bdf8-5976-81aa-fb9c8c7af494.html

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Hunting with hounds was once an integral part of country life across the UK

• Ben STANSALL

The well-organised saboteurs use radios and satellite mapping to follow the hunts

• Ben STANSALL

Saboteurs try to distract the dogs with loud cries and by spraying lemongrass to confuse their sense of smell

• Ben STANSALL

Even drones are used

• Ben STANSALL

Defenders of foxhunting say it is essential to control fox numbers

• Ben STANSALL

Trail hunting, where hounds follow a scent, has been banned in Scotland and England and Wales may follow

• Ben STANSALL

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Emerging from woods in a quiet corner of rural England, a small band of anti-foxhunting campaigners have just one goal: to confuse the pack of dogs chasing a fox and prevent its death.

These “hunt saboteurs” regularly gate-crash meetings across the country in what has become a fierce clash of cultures.

“Kermit to Animal, are you receiving?” crackles the radio from one old Toyota 4X4 to another, each with their own codename.

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The field sport of foxhunting, in which a pack of hounds chases and kills a fox accompanied by riders on horseback, was once an integral part of country life.

But the use of dogs to hunt wild animals has seen outlawed in England and Wales since 2004.

Trail hunts, which allow packs of dogs to follow a route artificially laid with fox scent, are allowed.

But critics say they are used as a cover for fox hunts to continue as before.

They say dogs still chase and kill live animals on these hunts, with organisers then claiming it was accidental.

Hunters counter that they comply with the law and that it is the saboteurs who are illegally interfering with their monitoring activities.

Today the saboteurs’ target is the Thurlow Hunt in rural Suffolk, eastern England.

Armed with maps on their phones and drones overhead, around 20 saboteurs exchange information over their radios about the position of the riders, taking care not to risk driving the fox back towards the pack.

Spotting a saboteur, one rider — dressed in a traditional red huntsman’s jacket — looks unhappy and turns back.

The barks of the dogs echo in the distance and hunt members including children on ponies gallop past.

“We don’t want to lose sight of them,” says Angela Vasiliu of the North London Hunt Saboteurs.

– ‘Prolific’ –

The saboteurs try to distract the dogs with loud cries and by spraying lemongrass to confuse their sense of smell.

If they fail to put them off and a fox is killed, at least they hope to gather evidence for prosecutions under the 2004 law.

Video taken by the hunt saboteurs led to the conviction of one member of the Thurlow Hunt in 2019, with the footage showing hunt members and saboteurs fighting over a fox’s remains during the traditional Boxing Day hunt on December 26, 2017.

Despite the ban, hunt saboteurs like Philip Walters insist that foxes are still being illegally hunted.

A senior police chief earlier this year said he believed unlawful foxhunting was “prolific” in the UK.

Matt Longman, the national police spokesman on foxhunting, even urged police forces to work with “volunteers” monitoring hunts to learn how to gather the sort of evidence that leads to successful prosecutions.

The Thurlow Hunt association stresses that it only “conducts lawful trail hunting activities to comply with the Hunting Act and constantly assesses its procedures to ensure best practice is carried out”.

And it complains of harassment and false accusations by the saboteurs, calling them “animal rights extremists”.

In Scotland, the devolved government in Edinburgh this year introduced a ban on trail hunting.

The UK’s main opposition Labour party has pledged to follow suit in England and Wales if it wins the next general election.

– Vegan sausage rolls –

Clashes between hunt members and saboteurs can often turn ugly — with accusations from both sides.

“Why, when hunt saboteur monitors turn up, are some hunts so violent if they haven’t got anything to hide?” asks Walters, also from the North London group, who says he has received death threats.

“I’ve had dead rats sent to me in the post, I’ve had dead foxes left on my car’s windscreen,” he said.

According to Polly Portwin, campaign director at the Countryside Alliance, which works to protect rural traditions, around 25 hunts out of the 200 that are active are being targeted by saboteurs, who claim 600 members.

Defenders of foxhunting say it is essential to control the number of foxes in the countryside and is more humane than shooting or poisoning.

After hours running through muddy woods, paths and fields, the saboteurs in Thurlow finally take a rest and restore their flagging energy levels with vegan sausage rolls and chocolate brownies.

They say they saw six or seven foxes that day but are hopeful they fulfilled their mission — to make sure that no fox is killed – because they did not see any dog with traces of blood on it.

spe/gmo/har/phz/gv

GEORGE OCHENSKI

DECEMBER 22, 2023 4:51 AM

https://dailymontanan.com/2023/12/22/the-endangered-species-act-is-now-more-important-than-ever/

     

 (Photo by Amy Macleod courtesy of Glacier National Park Conservancy)

Humans tend to see the world with mankind as the most important species on the planet.

That concept has been reinforced through any number of ancient myths, particularly one that claims humans “have dominion over” all creation.

But of course the actual “web of life” has many, many more strands than the rather newcomers of the human race. The great wisdom of the Endangered Species Act, now 50 years old, is to consider and maintain all the strands.

We have, and continue to, extirpate plants and animals for a huge variety of reasons. In the past, those reasons mostly concentrated on fulfilling the basic necessities of life as perceived at the time.

We hunted and fished for meat and hides, killed dangerous predators from fear and self-preservation, destroyed entire ecosystems to replace them with the plants and animals we desired.

Now, however, the destruction caused by the human race has gone far beyond the practices of the past. Now, we don’t extirpate entire species for our immediate needs, we extirpate them with the vast amounts of pollution we produce to fulfill desires that go far beyond our basic needs.

And that’s where the Endangered Species Act comes into play because it challenges us to consider what reasons are actually important enough to threaten, endanger and extirpate our fellow inhabitants on the planet we call home.

While Montana still has virtually all of the native species that were present when the Lewis and Clark Expedition traveled through 200 years ago, many are increasingly hanging on by an ever-thinner thread.

The fluvial Arctic grayling that once populated the entire Upper Missouri drainage has now been reduced to a mere handful, struggling with chronic irrigation dewatering and ever warmer temperatures in their shrinking redoubt of the Upper Big Hole River. But less than 300 exist and they may not make it through another summer of low flows. Yet, due to resistance by myopic politicians, these beautiful native fish have been precluded from the protections and recovery of the Endangered Species Act.

Or how about the Glacial Stone Flies that rely on and are only found in the highest, coldest drainages of Glacier National Park whose chances of survival look grim as those glaciers disappear at an astounding rate?

Then there are wolverines, the newest addition to the Endangered Species List. What possible reason could humans have for continuing to trap and kill wolverines? We surely don’t eat them and the concept of trapping and killing species on the brink of extinction merely for their fur should be left in the dustbin of history.

Now saved from trapping, the greatest challenge for wolverines — and the rest of us — is the climate crises ravaging the planet. Wolverines need deep snow in which to build their dens, store food and raise their kits. And as is all too evident, humans have utterly failed to heed the decades old warnings from scientists that our atmospheric pollution is out of control and the impacts are stacking up faster than ever.

The examples are legion — in the forests, mountains, rivers and oceans species are disappearing as what has been called “the Sixth Great Extinction Event” continues at an accelerating pace.

In the end, it comes down to the “web of life.”

Our arrogant and ignorant politicians falsely believe humanity can continue to survive without all the other strands.

But it’s increasingly clear that as go the endangered species, sooner rather than later, so, too, go we — which is why the Endangered Species Act is more important and necessary now than ever.

George Ochenski is a longtime Helena resident, an environmental activist and Montana’s longest-running columnist.

2 states continue to fully prohibit Sunday hunting, but that may soon change

Breaking: New York outlaws wildlife killing contests BY KITTY BLOCK

Bodies of coyotes piled in the back of a truck after a killing contest in Sullivan County, New York, in 2020. The HSUS

Today Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation to ban wildlife killing contests in New York state. This is a wonderful moment for wildlife, as New York has been the scene of more than 20 of these senseless spectacles each year. The contests targeted a broad range of animals including coyotes, foxes, bobcats, squirrels, raccoons, crows, rabbits and woodchucks. The new law, to take effect in November 2024, will prohibit cash-for-wildlife competitions in which the objective is to slaughter animals for money and prizes. We have long fought to end wildlife killing contests in New York; the bill was first introduced in 2006 by Assemblymember Deborah Glick. Since then, with Glick, state Sen. Tim Kennedy, our partner organizations and advocates across the state, we have pursued this legislation for nearly two decades Thousands of people contacted their legislators to urge support of the bill and Gov. Hochul to sign it into law. Our New York state director, Brian Shapiro, lobbied legislators year after year and amassed support from responsible hunters, wildlife-friendly farmers, veterinarians, wildlife rehabilitators, scientists, environmental advocates and others. This broad coalition was in strong agreement that wildlife killing contests are simply cruel and unsporting. Read more.

Related StoriesOregon ends wildlife killing contests; New York poised to do the sameBreaking news: Washington becomes seventh U.S. state to outlaw wildlife killing contestsUndercover investigation exposes senseless rush to kill coyotes at New York wildlife killing contest

Wrexham: Hunter who let hounds chase fox fined

Hunting Horror Behind The Boxing Day Charade

Joshua Duclos, Boston University

Fri, December 22, 2023 at 9:05 AM PST·7 min read

https://news.yahoo.com/hunting-moral-philosopher-unpacks-170510072.html

Every year as daylight dwindles and trees go bare, debates arise over the morality of hunting. Hunters see the act of stalking and killing deer, ducks, moose and other quarry as humane, necessary and natural, and thus as ethical. Critics respond that hunting is a cruel and useless act that one should be ashamed to carry out.

As a nonhunter, I cannot say anything about what it feels like to shoot or trap an animal. But as a student of philosophy and ethics, I think philosophy can help us clarify, systematize and evaluate the arguments on both sides. And a better sense of the arguments can help us talk to people with whom we disagree.

Three rationales for hunting

One central question is why people choose to hunt. Environmental philosopher Gary Varner identifies three types of hunting: therapeutic, subsistence and sport. Each type is distinguished by the purpose it is meant to serve.

Therapeutic hunting involves intentionally killing wild animals in order to conserve another species or an entire ecosystem. In one example, Project Isabella, conservation groups hired marksmen to eradicate thousands of feral goats from several Galapagos islands between 1997 and 2006. The goats were overgrazing the islands, threatening the survival of endangered Galapagos tortoises and other species.

Subsistence hunting is intentionally killing wild animals to supply nourishment and material resources for humans. Agreements that allow Native American tribes to hunt whales are justified, in part, by the subsistence value the animals have for the people who hunt them.

In contrast, sport hunting refers to intentionally killing wild animals for enjoyment or fulfillment. Hunters who go after deer because they find the experience exhilarating, or because they want antlers to mount on the wall, are sport hunters.

These categories are not mutually exclusive. A hunter who stalks deer because he or she enjoys the experience and wants decorative antlers may also intend to consume the meat, make pants from the hide and help control local deer populations. The distinctions matter because objections to hunting can change depending on the type of hunting.

What bothers people about hunting: Harm, necessity and character

Critics often argue that hunting is immoral because it requires intentionally inflicting harm on innocent creatures. Even people who are not comfortable extending legal rights to beasts should acknowledge that many animals are sentient – that is, they have the capacity to suffer. If it is wrong to inflict unwanted pain and death on a sentient being, then it is wrong to hunt. I call this position “the objection from harm.”

If sound, the objection from harm would require advocates to oppose all three types of hunting, unless it can be shown that greater harm will befall the animal in question if it is not hunted – for example, if it will be doomed to slow winter starvation. Whether a hunter’s goal is a healthy ecosystem, a nutritious dinner or a personally fulfilling experience, the hunted animal experiences the same harm.

But if inflicting unwanted harm is necessarily wrong, then the source of the harm is irrelevant. Logically, anyone who commits to this position should also oppose predation among animals. When a lion kills a gazelle, it causes as much unwanted harm to the gazelle as any hunter would – far more, in fact.

Few people are willing to go this far. Instead, many critics propose what I call the “objection from unnecessary harm”: it is bad when a hunter shoots a lion, but not when a lion mauls a gazelle, because the lion needs to kill to survive.

Today it is hard to argue that human hunting is strictly necessary in the same way that hunting is necessary for animals. The objection from necessary harm holds that hunting is morally permissible only if it is necessary for the hunter’s survival. “Necessary” could refer to nutritional or ecological need, which would provide moral cover for subsistence and therapeutic hunting. But sport hunting, almost by definition, cannot be defended this way.

Sport hunting also is vulnerable to another critique that I call “the objection from character.” This argument holds that an act is contemptible not only because of the harm it produces, but because of what it reveals about the actor. Many observers find the derivation of pleasure from hunting to be morally repugnant.

In 2015, American dentist Walter Palmer found this out after his African trophy hunt resulted in the death of Cecil the lion. Killing Cecil did no significant ecological damage, and even without human intervention, only one in eight male lions survives to adulthood. It would seem that disgust with Palmer was at least as much a reaction to the person he was perceived to be – someone who pays money to kill majestic creatures – as to the harm he had done.

The hunters I know don’t put much stock in “the objection from character.” First, they point out that one can kill without having hunted and hunt without having killed. Indeed, some unlucky hunters go season after season without taking an animal. Second, they tell me that when a kill does occur, they feel a somber union with and respect for the natural world, not pleasure. Nonetheless, on some level the sport hunter enjoys the experience, and this is the heart of the objection.

Is hunting natural?

In discussions about the morality of hunting, someone inevitably asserts that hunting is a natural activity since all preindustrial human societies engage in it to some degree, and therefore hunting can’t be immoral. But the concept of naturalness is unhelpful and ultimately irrelevant.

A very old moral idea, dating back to the Stoics of ancient Greece, urges us to strive to live in accordance with nature and do that which is natural. Belief in a connection between goodness and naturalness persists today in our use of the word “natural” to market products and lifestyles – often in highly misleading ways. Things that are natural are supposed to be good for us, but also morally good.

Setting aside the challenge of defining “nature” and “natural,” it is dangerous to assume that a thing is virtuous or morally permissible just because it is natural. HIV, earthquakes, Alzheimer’s disease and post-partum depression are all natural. And as The Onion has satirically noted, behaviors including rape, infanticide and the policy of might-makes-right are all present in the natural world.

Hard conversations

There are many other moral questions associated with hunting. Does it matter whether hunters use bullets, arrows or snares? Is preserving a cultural tradition enough to justify hunting? And is it possible to oppose hunting while still eating farm-raised meat?

As a starting point, though, if you find yourself having one of these debates, first identify what kind of hunting you’re discussing. If your interlocutor objects to hunting, try to discover the basis for their objection. And I believe you should keep nature out of it.

Finally, try to argue with someone who takes a fundamentally different view. Confirmation bias – the unintentional act of confirming the beliefs we already have – is hard to overcome. The only antidote I know of is rational discourse with people whose confirmation bias runs contrary to my own.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world.The Conversation has a variety of fascinating free newsletters.

It was written by: Joshua Duclos, Boston University.

Read more:

• Why it’s impossible to actually be a vegetarian
• Might Ringling’s retiring of elephants signal Americans’ retiring sense of entitlement to view wildlife?
• To better conserve wildlife, consider all kinds of animals, not just the ones we hunt

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Canterbury father and son banned from keeping animals after dog injured in fox hunt has wounds superglued