Please, if you can, give the CA a call on 0207 840 9200 regarding their "spokesman" on today's Wednesday 8 April "Alan Titchmarsh Show" on ITV. A discussion on proposals to reverse Labour's Hunting Act took place.

During this the CA "representative" - Jim Barrington - used words in regard to the shooting of foxes such as a "leg blown off", a "jaw blown off", "wounded", and going off "to die in a hole".

It is quite unacceptable for this to go unchallenged and the more of us telephone the better.

A CWD or a muntjac isn't much bigger then some foxes and how long before other organisations start quoting the CA and such public statements on a "leg" or a a "jaw being "blown off" to use it against shooting of deer?

On the lines of "a CA representative was on television recently saying that shooting fox sized animals with rifles was cruel and could lead to wounding with legs and jaws being blown off".

After you call the number, please, stay on the line until you get to actually speak to a member of staff and make your comments known.

ES

I agree completely with the position that organizations purporting to represent ALL field sports should not denigrate any of them.

However, what is the point you would wish us to make in our phone call?

Is it that you feel that legs, jaws etc do NOT get blown off in error & thus, JB was lying?

Or that if foxes are accidentally wounded by a rifleman, it is NOT cruel?

Or would you have us suggest that although these things happen to a non quantified amount - rifle shooting is still more humane than a chase with hounds?

Playing devils advocate here, as I do not hunt but do use a rifle. Just trying to clarify your thoughts as to a valid reason for complaint.

BTW - for those not aware, Jim Barrington actually used to be Director of LACS - he has undergone a sea-change in his thinking, & having him appearing for the hunting side of the argument is a major coup for all field sports.

This piece shows his thinking and I confess to being in agreement with the rationale he presents. Note that this is dated 2004 - if it sounds familiar, then I would suggest it is because the man has not changed his viewpoint in the last half decade!

http://www.opendemocracy.net/e...ing/article_2103.jsp

Rgds Ian

I am not happy about other points that JB has said since moving to the CA, he has made comments about snares being inhumane.

Without snares professional 'keepers would have a difficult job controlling fox numbers, at present they are legal, so presumably their "humaneness" has been tested - somebody employed by the CA should not go sniping about control methods, he will end up dividing the CA membership and fieldsports will be the losers.

JB, once a snake always a snake!!

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However, what is the point you would wish us to make in our phone call?

What makes him a "Qualified" expert to make such a statement?

1. Does he Shoot?

2. Can he hit anything, if he does? Perhaps a Fox-sized target?

3. Personal experience?

4. Witnessed such an incident?

5. Found body bits laying about after such incidents?

6. All his Shooting & Stalking buddies have realted such incidents to him while having a Pint after their collective Fox Shooting?

quote:

he has undergone a sea-change in his thinking,

Yeah, Ian, from Zero thinking to negative. The article is so full of contradictions as to defy credibility.



"if I knew the full facts about hunting"

He qualifies his article with this. He admits he doesn't know Shit from Fat Meat.....but as opposed to the "Full" facts then perhaps he could offer up one.....?

"At the end of a long, slow learning-curve".

He states that he is against causing unneccessary suffering & I don't have a problem with that.
It certainly bothers me if I don't kill an animal quickly and cleanly.
I think he's one of the few I've encountered coming from the other side who is willing to listen to other points of view and is open to them.
If we want our causes to prosper, it wouldn't do us any harm to be more open ourselves and admit that occasionally members of our community fall short of the high standards we set ourselves.

quote:

However, what is the point you would wish us to make in our phone call?

That they should stop seeking to justify houndsports by criticising other lawful forms of control.

That houndsports should argue the merit of what they do on its own terms not by seeking to declare other methods as cruel.

I have never in thirty years EVER heard those that shoot foxes use the converse position. I hear them say that it is efficient, that several foxes may be killed on one night. That it can be discretely done with a silenced rifle etc., etc.

But NEVER that a bullet kills cleanly and humanely so is "kinder" than being run ten miles till exhausted and then ripped to pieces whilst still alive.

So why do houndsports followers continue to use this black propaganda against the use of the rifle to justify their pastime.

quote:

he is against causing unneccessary suffering

He needs some practice.....

"Better Listening" followed by "How to say more with your Mouth Closed" would relieve my suffering considerably.

quote:

That they should stop seeking to justify houndsports by criticising other lawful forms of control

Yup, a tactic - attempt to get out of the spotlight by focusing the spotlight somewhere else.