Well said UK hunter and Mike.
The tradition of hunting and harvesting the abundance of wildlife in its many different forms, is under heavy attac form the lobbying activists in most countrys.
Many of them are fundamentalistic in their belives, and put a very heavy pressure upon the politicans.

Many of the politicans by the way, have little if any firsthand knowledge about hunting and shooting.
They again, have advisors in their departments wich usually are recruted from the top flight universities.
Again...people with wery little dirt on their hands and blood on their knives.

I red an article in a British field magazine that the keeping and maintenance of hedges and fences was an important part of the fox hunting.
And that stop in the hunting would mean that such an important part of the countryside "maintenance" would then suffer.

We have the same here in Norway.
Action groups are against moose, reindeer and red / roe deer hunting and belive that the necessary control of the wild animal population should be regulatet by state employees.
Not to mention the whaling and the costal and arctic seal hunt. And that in a country with ten thousands years of hunting tradition, and where venison is an important part of the food.
I agree with those who woice the fact that in due time, this will affect all of us, one way or the other.

I just caught a glimpse on the news of the UK fox/houndsmen busted into the Common House and generally made a disgrace of themselves. Not a very good show...

The disgrace is our so called Government ignoring a huge section of the rural community.

Up to now, the Countryside lobby has been peaceful and well behaved and has simply been ignored. Therefore certain elements in it will now start making their protest more "vigorous"...

I predict the Government is going have an interesting time in the run up to the next election and I suspect TB knows this too!

But from what I have seen from Sweden (I read The Spectator weekly), the opposition at large is not entierly outspoken on countryside matters either...?

Regards,
Martin

I disagree. The disgrace is that normally law abiding people are forced to make this kind of protest.

The disgrace is that BLiar commissioned an independant report to establish the rights and wrongs of fox hunting and
when the report did not come up with the answers that Blair and his socialist gang wanted to hear they decide to ignore it and press for a ban to subdue their ill informed back-benchers. Prejudice - pure and simple.

MPs are supposed to get informed and lead. Sad.

Keep fighting for your rights and traditions.

Hog Killer

If anyone reads this post...
If it comes to the point where fox hunting is banned in the U.K., anyone can come hunt red fox on my three properties without question. Although we have seen decline in red fox because we have coyotes now, we still have plenty of tree climbing grey fox to shoot.

No one here will cry about when, how, or where you shoot a ratty 10 pound fox. No one will care if you even walk through town carrying the rifle/shotgun you intend to use to kill the fox.
Only the game warden will care if you have enough flourescent orange on to kill the fox, and that is if you even see him.
And since we don't have a prime minister, we don't have someone who can introduce legislation that bans handguns and have handguns banned so fast our heads spin. Come on, even in Canada you can still buy handguns, and their gun laws are supposed to be strict.
Seriously, you can have all the red fox you want.. if they ban it in England, etc, you can come here and shoot them till your heart is content.

A quotation once said to me "When its time to bury them, its time to use them." And its truer than it sounds.

Civil disobedience is the only way to make the un-democratic Western governments change to following true democracy again.

Unfortunately for those of us with jobs, businesses, careers etc a criminal charge can stuff you up unlike the unemployable, parasite swill the other side consists principally of.

I applaud the 'fox-hunters' protests inside and outside of Parliament.

Yes, we might all think "what does it matter to me, if they ban foxhunting. I hunt with a rifle, and not from horseback" - or some such thing. But it is all part of a movement away from traditional, country side lifestyle and values. Our societies are increasingly urbanized, and most people in the cities know nature best from the latest wildlife program on BBC. This is an environment wide open to contribution soliciting environmental organizations, many of which would much prefer to see all type of hunting burn in hell.

Case in point, apparently there is an attempt under way to gather sufficient signatures to launch a referendum in Switzerland to ban ALL sport hunting and angling. Sounds crazy, and impossible?? Well, the Canton of Geneva already banned all hunting. They now pay public employees to control game populations - all for our tax money. As an aside, the public employees don't even have to pass the stringent tests required for hunters. Go figure. Needless to say, when the Antis launch a campaign like this, they conveniently forget to tell the public, that the same amount of animals must be culled every year. The public is left to believe, that all animals would live happily ever after in an animal paradise, if we could finally get rid of the bloodthirsty hunters.

So, indeed: fight for your rights. This could come to a theater near you any time.
- mike