17th November 2012
Don’t Be Fooled By Hunters Latest Scam
The latest pro hunting wheeze is to get primary schools to ‘adopt a hound’. Cynically timed to coincide with the Opening Meets of many UK fox hunts, it’s the latest attempt by the tally-ho brigade to normalize their preferred form of animal abuse.
Such a confidence trick is to be expected. The tally-ho brigade know that their cover for hunting wild animals with dogs can only survive if a new generation is continually blooded into the sport.
Engaging school age kids is an obvious tactic. Plus it looks good because, unless you’re a fox, hounds really are lovely.
I followed a Dorset hunt twice last season in my van, openly and without any intention of interfering. The verbal abuse and threatening behaviour which my passengers and I suffered was considerable and anti-social. Of coarse, the police were informed.
It was clear that the hunt in question was not prepared to tolerate being observed by us because they knew we were ‘anti’. Maybe they were shy because, in my opinion, they were hunting live foxes and thus breaking the law?
I wonder if children, unfamiliar with the horrors of foxhunting, will be shown the cruel and illegal practices which have been legislated against? Or will they, more likely, be introduced only to the pomp and ceremony, the pageantry and colour, the glossy façade, being gradually ‘broken in’ until it’s deemed okay to reveal the shocking truths of chasing live foxes with dog packs and baiting them with terriers? Perhaps, like many hunt followers, they’ll rarely if ever witness the end bit.
Although a little over school age now, later this winter I might ‘adopt’ hounds from my local hunt and follow them for a day, or two, again. The question is whether I’ll be made as welcome as those of an impressionable age who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the realities and ripe for absorbing pro-hunting propaganda?
Posted by Joe Hashman
2 Comments | Leave a comment
Emily Fox says:
Posted November 17, 2012 at 9:12 pm
Eye-opening article, I had heard of hunt’s using this bizarre approach to engage our young, as stated, hounds are lovely, and most children will surely take to the animals.
I also know that when children are introduced to wildlife, most find our wildlife fascinating, from watching frogspawn become tadpoles, tadpoles become froglets, froglets become frogs, to watching vixens nurture their young, the deer grazing, hares boxing on misty march mornings, robins tirelessly to-and fro-ing to feed their chicks, mini-beasts with their minute but fascinating structures.
Animals are a wonderful part of our world, but what an awful way to introduce our children to their kingdom- with the idea that some animals are little more than tools with which to pursue other creatures, that foxes, hares, deer, otters and mink are somehow exempt from the compassion we naturally extend to all creatures from an early age.
Pete says:
Posted November 29, 2012 at 7:01 pm
Just like one of the three hunts in my area that actually has a meet subtitled “Children’s meet” and another one that departs from a local school.