MPs vote to ban hunting with dogs

[T_i_B]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3660294.stm

MPs have voted to ban hunting with dogs despite mass demonstrations and the debate in the House of Commons being interrupted by protesters.

The Bill's third reading was passed by 339 votes to 155 after Rural Affairs Minister Alun Michael insisted the will of the elected chamber would prevail.

The government has said the bill will be pushed through if peers oppose it. The Conservatives' rural affairs spokesman James Gray accused Labour of having an "Islingtonian outlook".

The government originally wanted to delay the enforcement of the ban until November 2006 to enable people working in hunting to readjust and for dogs to be rehomed. But any ban will come into force in July 2006 after a suggested amendment to the Bill was passed by MPs by 342 votes to 15.

[Lovecrafty]

1. Luckily this doesn't effect Jack, my Basset Hound!

[gator_in_Ontario]

2. Here we don't need dogs anyway...

cuz we gots assault waepons! Yee Haw!!

[T_i_B]

3. Queen is 'exasperated by Blair's ignorance of countryside'

Perhaps unsuprisingly, from the Sunday Telegraph. Make of this what you will.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/09/19/nhunt19.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/09/19/ixportal.html

The Queen has regularly warned Tony Blair for at least two years that his Government does not understand hunting and other countryside issues, The Telegraph can reveal.

The warnings were given during their weekly audiences at Buckingham Palace and the Queen is now said to be "exasperated" that the country has been divided by the Labour Party's decision to ban hunting.

It was the Queen herself who disclosed her concerns in a rare, indiscreet comment during a private conversation with John Daw, a former chairman of the Devon branch of the National Farmers' Union. Mr Daw told the Queen: "I don't think Tony Blair and this Government understand the countryside." According to Mr Daw, the Queen replied: "I know. I tell him that every week when I see him." Mr Daw, 56, said yesterday: "What made me smile was that the Queen implied she had said it to him last week and would be saying it to him the next week too."

The brief conversation was in May 2002, in the aftermath of the foot and mouth crisis. Those close to the Queen believe that her fears have deepened since then.

[sweetheart]

4. truth about animal trauma

If the worst suffering in britain, that requires the focus of the
nation's parliament is a fikking fox, then wow, no animal suffers...
just that's patently not true.

Chicken batteries, animals being shipped for slaugher in packed
lorries, humans rotting in prison for having drugs addiction issues,
humans being slaughtered by illegal military invasions, house mice
being trapped and poisoned, farm animals left in pain for the expensive cost of vet treatment... and a million more.

Yes indeed, the hunt is an old class war issue finally put to rest
by the islington set, ensconced in their 100% paved universe where
no farm animals live, and no wild countryside exists for miles.

I really don't see the problem with leaving the hunt people alone.
It is a pyrric victory when all other political victories for
labour are stymied by tony's iraq debacle. I have 1 word for anyone
with the time to bullshit about the hunt in westminster: "IRAQ"

[LeftishBrit]

5. I think all these issues are important

Fox hunting is not Britain's worst problem, but I still think that it is cruel and causes unnecessary suffering.

I do agree that Blair can hardly be called a humanitarian, given his policies on Iraq.

[sweetheart]

6. hunting pests

I am not a sheep crofter, so i think foxes are kinda cool and love
it when i see them, as they seem like dogs to me. I wonder if you
raised one in captivity, would it be like a dog?

That said, keepers of stock animals, especially sheep are anti-things
that kill or injure sheep. Crows can eat baby lambs, so they are
shot with impunity during the lamming... same with foxes and even
waward dogs. So the only difference in the fox hunt, is that the
fox has the potential to get away... as there is no sport in a
scope rifle and a searchlight. (modern fox elimination takes a
landrover out at night with a searchlight and shoots the shiny eyes
of the fox as it looks back)

The cruelty is that drawn out death of the dogs chasing, sorta like
when a cat catches a bird, or when a fisherman catches a fish, or
when a snake catches a rat, or when a wolf catches a roe deer, or
when a sheep drowns in soggy bog. Predator animals live by a cruel
code of the wild... fact. Any animal that hunts for its food
is ultimately cruel at the end at the kill. Even the pain of
dying from a bullet wound to the leg, is cruel.

Many sheep farmers have dogs, like border collies that themselves
are genetically inclined to hunt sheep, and are re-trained to heard
them and not kill them. Sometimes the wires get crossed and a lamb
gets killed. In such cases, its rather rare to put the dog down.

We've gotta make peace with the fact that God's nature has predators
who hunt and kill cruelly. Certainly we can make laws to minimize
human causes in this all... but its really no victory. Cars kill
foxes, birds, rabbits, sheep and deer. If you want to outlaw
driving, it would surely save more animals a cruel death.

I'm sorry, if i put all the issues of animal cruelty and death on
a giant spreadsheet and sort them by the real criteria of most
suffering for most animals, fox hunting is way way down the list,
and a serious animal'itarian would surely have to start with
stock animals and the abbotoir.

A nearby farmer just took some of his sheep in the tractor transport
box to a nearby farm that they be taken away to the mutton auction.
(old sheep.. for slaughter). The sheep, broke open the box and
escaped en route, they were so filled with fear being taken away
from the fields where they've lived their whole lives. Surely that
fear of pending death and the animal panic it causes are root to
ending fox hunting... well then, i hope those activists get their
bloody spreadsheet sorted properly.

[Guy_Montag]

7. Unnecessary Suffering

I was reading a book about people exploring the frozen north; what came up in it was that someone got bitten by a polar bear & dragged off. His comrades shot the bear, but the point is: when he was being dragged off by the head he said he had no fear, pain or worry. It was like he was dissociated from his body. Interestingly a similar thing happened to Livingston (of "Dr. Livingston, I presume" fame) but with a lion & he again felt no pain or fear.

I am quite agnostic about foxhunting - to be honest I don't really care one way or the other.

[Mr Creosote]

9. I flip flop on this one

whenever I see the pro-hunt lobby I feel that hunting should be banned. And when I see the anti-hunt lobby, I think the hunters should be left in peace. I suppose on the whole I am against things being banned, and I tend to feel that the correct position on any issue is to disagree with the war criminal, so I'd probably let em get on with it. But I really don't give a f*ck about it either way.
Interestingly enough New Taxes Labour's commitment to wildlife is somewhat shaky. In the same week that they voted the hunting ban bill through Ben Bradshaw authorised the culling of 3,000 cormorants (EU rules permit a maximum of 300). (Sorry can't provide a web link for that - it was on page 4 of Saturday's Western Morning News).

[Nihil]

8. Not simply "class war", more anti-hedonism

I have no problem with farmers who drive their Land Rovers out at
night to shoot any fox who poses a threat to their livestock.
Take a powerful torch and use one bullet between the eyes. Job done.
One of my friends used to do that (when he still kept sheep).

I have a great problem with people who turn such vermin control into
a source of entertainment (even more so to those who pretend it is
somehow a "sport").

This is not class warfare, it is down to addressing the "I can do
anything I want to" attitude, the "my lifestyle is all important"
approach, the "I can so I will" (with the implicit or explicit
"so f*ck you and the rest of the world" tagged on the end).

It is ultimately the attitude that says "it doesn't really matter
if you kill innocent people who live a thousand miles away because,
let's face it, they're NOT US are they? WE are the important ones."

Ironically, some of the people fighting (literally) for the "right"
to chase a fox to its death are the ones who scream & shout about
the "dangers" of violent video games ... hmmm ...

Yes, there are many more serious things to address in this country but
do people really believe we should only solve one problem at a time,
worst one first before slowly moving our way down the list?

Even a small victory like this is a step towards a better future.

Nihil

[Mr Creosote]

10. Is that actually possible?

on the rare occasions that I have encountered foxes in the wild they have struck me as very small, furtive and quick animals. I think a farmer with a shotgun is likelier to wing the fox as it runs away leaving it to bleed to death.
I'm sure that must be more humane ways of controlling them than that or hunting.