Fox Hunting

[Deerhunter]

Originally Posted by Brains

oh - what an offer, you old romantic, you BTW, it's just the one PhD!!!


ha -Adge has gone all American! But you may scoff - but that is exactly what the Hunts and CA were saying at the time. It is exactly what they said would happen if the Hunting Bill was passed, as you well know!


haha - no - but I do expect you sat around saying "what those townies don't understand is that we 'AVE to kill 'em and there'll be more killed 'cos we'll just go out and shoot 'n' snare 'em" And if you are who I think you are, you said exactly those things!


Is this a first

"ha -Adge has gone all American! But you may scoff - but that is exactly what the Hunts and CA were saying at the time. It is exactly what they said would happen if the Hunting Bill was passed, as you well know!"

Yes. But it appears we are still contolling foxes.



"haha - no - but I do expect you sat around saying "what those townies don't understand is that we 'AVE to kill 'em and there'll be more killed 'cos we'll just go out and shoot 'n' snare 'em" And if you are who I think you are, you said exactly those things!"

You know me ?

Crikey !!

I can confirm that hunting is discussed in the pub. I fact only three hours ago. The pub that is.

The hunting was 10 hours ago.

[Deerhunter]

Originally Posted by Brains

Hi Xanadu

That work is very important because during FMD and in the months following there was no hunting. That has been quite rare and thus was a good opportunity to directly at the effectiveness of hunting in population control. Thus, if hunting was contributing to population control, you would expect that during 2002 there would have been a spike in fox numbers and in the rate of predation on livestock, particularly on poultry. There was no detectable increase in fox numbers and, anecdotally at least, no increase in predation. The question then is why. Was there an increase in foxes caught by snaring or shot through lamping? This is why I wanted to know from DH whether he recalled any increase in fox activity during that year - and he didn't. And in fact, no-one I have asked saw a significant increase in fox activity. This is consistent with no change in the measured fox population and so suggests that hunting is an insignificant factor in the control of fox populations. And at the time, the Countryside Alliance was putting out the message that hunts were being responsible by not going out, and that it would demonstrate the effectiveness of hunting as a population control method when the fox population increased substantially. The Hunts were saying the same thing. Afterwards, they switched to the argument of the rights of minorities, presumably because they couldn't make the population control argument stick.

However, other research can also be done, for instance in comparing the population, distribution, productivity and dispersal of foxes in similar habitats that are hunted to those that are not. This is where the faecal counts will be useful in assessing populations across wide areas of landscape. In other places, controlled experiments can be carried out, such as the GCTs Otterburn Experiment - although I can only find info for it up to 2004 whereas the experiment was due to end in 2008. This experiment is looking at the effects of predator control by gamekeepers on ground-nesting bird breeding success in addition to the effects on game bird populations. I have emailed the GCT to ask if it is still continuing.

Population modelling work has it's place as well .. but it is only as good as the models used. The modelling paper I quoted looks pretty real-world, though it's out of my field. Lots of the early modelling was very generalised and made lots of non-real world assumptions - so I treat them with some caution.

Hope that answers your question

To answer this you would have to get the data on snaring and lamping.

And as you know... there are none. So your theories count for nothing.

[Xanadu2]

Originally Posted by Brains

Hi Xanadu

That work is very important because during FMD and in the months following there was no hunting. That has been quite rare and thus was a good opportunity to directly at the effectiveness of hunting in population control. Thus, if hunting was contributing to population control, you would expect that during 2002 there would have been a spike in fox numbers and in the rate of predation on livestock, particularly on poultry. There was no detectable increase in fox numbers and, anecdotally at least, no increase in predation. The question then is why.
Hope that answers your question

Hi Brains,

Thanks very much! I've had a difficult day - 5 hours for the RAC to attend a breakdown! , and I'm out all day tomorrow - but as soon as I can catch up, I have something to say that I think will interest you.

[Brains]

Originally Posted by Deerhunter

Yes. But it appears we are still contolling foxes.

I know you are ... however little difference it makes

Originally Posted by Deerhunter

You know me ?

Lets just say that I have deep suspicions that I've talked to you a lot!

Originally Posted by Deerhunter

I can confirm that hunting is discussed in the pub. I fact only three hours ago. The pub that is.

The hunting was 10 hours ago.

Good - just maybe we'll get somewhere then. Now, do you know how many foxes were killed by the hunts around you last season and how many days hunting there were?

Originally Posted by Deerhunter

To answer this you would have to get the data on snaring and lamping.

And as you know... there are none. So your theories count for nothing.

Which is exactly why I asked you if you noticed any thing, or caught anything more ... etc. Anecdotal evidence is all there is. But controlled experiments can still be carried out. And comparisons can still be made.

[Brains]

Originally Posted by Xanadu2

Hi Brains,

Thanks very much! I've had a difficult day - 5 hours for the RAC to attend a breakdown! , and I'm out all day tomorrow - but as soon as I can catch up, I have something to say that I think will interest you.

I will look forward to it

[Deerhunter]

Originally Posted by Brains

Good - just maybe we'll get somewhere then. Now, do you know how many foxes were killed by the hunts around you last season and how many days hunting there were?

Well none were killed of course !!!

And they were out for about 50 days.

[Brains]

Originally Posted by Deerhunter

Well none were killed of course !!!

And they were out for about 50 days.

Ha - I'm being serious you know I was wondering how many foxes were killed during those 50 days.

[Xanadu2]

Originally Posted by Brains

Hi Xanadu

That work is very important because during FMD and in the months following there was no hunting. That has been quite rare and thus was a good opportunity to directly at the effectiveness of hunting in population control. Thus, if hunting was contributing to population control, you would expect that during 2002 there would have been a spike in fox numbers and in the rate of predation on livestock, particularly on poultry. There was no detectable increase in fox numbers and, anecdotally at least, no increase in predation. The question then is why.

Hope that answers your question

Hi Brains,

Thank you for confirming this. I’ve had an idea about the subject for some time, and, ever since I saw which way this thread was heading, I’ve been checking it out.

It concerns dates. As far as I can discover there was no ban on hunting in the summer of 2000. Hunting was still legal and no-one knew FMD lay round the corner, Cub-hunting began as usual in mid-August, until the opening meets at the beginning of November. Then hunting continued as normal throughout the winter of 2000/2001, until the season was almost over.

When FMD was discovered on 20th February 2001 and the countryside closed on 22nd February, the hunts only lost a couple of weeks of their normal activities. A hunt meeting three times a week and finishing the season at the end of February would have lost a mere three meets. A hunt continuing until mid–March but meeting twice a week would have lost six meets. Every hunt has finished its season by the third week in March, and, although the FMD ban continues into the spring and summer, this is the close season for fox-hunting, so the ban only affected the hunting of mink! However the start of cub-hunting in 2001 was slightly delayed.

It is quite usual for every hunt to have a few meets cancelled for one reason or another during the course of the average season, so what possible difference can the FMD ban have made to the number of foxes? People I’ve discussed this with all added that after 21st February, every farmer who could use a gun went out shooting foxes on his own land even more than usual, so the number of foxes was likely to be somewhat down!

New web browsers don’t make it easy to copy urls as you could do in the past, but a Google search on CNN “Foot-and-mouth crisis timetable” brings up all the dates connected with FMD, and pro-hunting sites provide the rest!

I am not surprised at IFAW trumpeting that a ban on foxhunting didn’t cause an explosion in fox numbers, because that suits their ends. I note what you said about discounting biased information. However I am very surprised that scientists appear not to have spotted the dates involved, when they are so easy to confirm.

Can you shed any light on this, please?

[Xanadu2]

Hmm, I had another Google search and found that some hunts apparently hunt into April. I have never heard of this outside the Internet and can categorically state that the dates I gave are correct in this part of the country, and everywhere else that I know about.

I think an email to the Countryside Alliance asking simply when the season finishes and what is the norm, without giving any idea of the context of the enquiry, should reveal all.

[dog stone]

Originally Posted by Xanadu2

Hmm, I had another Google search and found that some hunts apparently hunt into April. I have never heard of this outside the Internet and can categorically state that the dates I gave are correct in this part of the country, and everywhere else that I know about.

I think an email to the Countryside Alliance asking simply when the season finishes and what is the norm, without giving any idea of the context of the enquiry, should reveal all.

Some hunts do hunt in to March and April, notably moorland packs on Exmoor & Dartmoor for example, although they have recently been finishing earlier due to foxes breeding patterns changing, ie earlier cubs and due to farmers lambing earlier than they used too