What we really need is a method of dealing with urban foxes. Following a test by a friend I can confirm that concreting them into their dens does not work.
What is wrong with urban foxes? They are way cool! What harm do they do to you or in general? We have them in my area, I love them, always happy to see them
The urban fox population is out of control and makes a total mess of bins, etc. Don't get me started on the noise which is bad enough in the country when they're half a mile away rather than straight outside your window.
Not really a fan of capital punishment, but I'd happily make an exception for anyone who is in any way involved in fox hunting. fooking barbaric savages the lot of them.
The noise they make in parts of Islington is f*cking hilarious. Absolutely unearthly. Also, some of them can be quite aggressive with kids. Also, next door's dog goes absolutely mental for about half an hour every night when he's let out coz he can smell the fox den underneath their shed and the barking winds me up tbf.
Yes Jez, the way to win this and be PM for 100 years is to propose lits of laws you will definitely lose. we will start with the foxes. your surname is hunt so that will resonnate. no cant think of any downsidesor cheap gags with that one. maybe use some quentin blake drawings of fantastic mr fox with bojo's nabbba pasted on.
then something like no tax for people who own castles or have hyphenated surnames
Then propose to give each household a tube of smarties. Are you the "nasty party"? no, we're the "smartie party". would be great to get Sami Chakrabotti into this campaign.
then hunt could get a bit more serious and delete all the homeless. I mean what are they good for (pr note, another campaign song). and humans are so like pigs we might be able to turn them into gammon. good stuff this, i am writing hunt the runt (chose to be the bigger man there) an invoice
Christ, talk about first world problems. Fox hunting is basically pest control. I am utterly equivocal about people getting dressed up on horseback to chase them down, but do agree that allowing dogs to kill them is unnecessarily cruel. Shoot them by all means though.
TBF foxes are vermin and should be killed as humanely as possible. Fox hunting is a joke - if those that pursue it really cared about the countryside they'd use the money saved on the horses to employ people to do useful work.
Badman do you not think a society that allows the hunting and killing of animals for pleasure and sport is a bit debased, regardless of whether it sometimes necessary to kull as a reluctant last resort?
I'm no fan of foxes (vermin) but on balance I do probably support a ban. There are more humane methods of despatch. It seems odd that it attracts such strong views on either side though.
Aside from the important animal welfare concerns dux the reason it attracts such strong views is that it is a class issue. Working class sport involving taking pleasure in harming animals was mostly banned decades ago or longer (badger baiting, dog fighting, cock fighting etc etc) fox hunting seemed to get special dispensation because the landed gentry (or now more often people pretending to be the landed gentry) do it
It's interesting that, of the very few Conservatives (Lords and Commons) who supported the ban, most were ardent Brexiteers: most famously Widders, but also David Amess, etc.
to an extent you've got to dance with the one that brung you.
or whatever the quotation is.
but I do wonder why , having seen how toxic it was as a dog whistle issue last time you'd do it again. maybe the point is that the tree hugging hippies are never going to vote for a party that is committed to Brexit, so fvck it, go for the base.
DD King and Anonymous - it depends on the place, but yes, foxes are pests. You need to check your facts - these are good and (fairly) accurate websites:
What you need to bear in mind is that foxes are opportunistic predators and in the countryside (where I now live again) are a menace to poultry and need to have their numbers kept down. The problem is exacerbated by people leaving out their food waste in unsecured bins. As I've said, they're opportunistic, so will eat anything which is not shut away and food waste allows numbers to increase exponentially.
In the city, I can't see how you can argue that foxes are anything but pests. They have no place and serve no purpose. Whilst they won't harm you, they do make one hell of a mess. And a lot of them suffer from diseases like mange, ticks and so on.
That having been said, I don't think that hunting for pleasure is the best way of achieving population control. Shooting them is quick, not stressful and humane.
Foxes are a bloody nuisance, but there's no statutory definition of vermin, even under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. That doesn't mean they don't need to be controlled though. Agree with Badders that shooting is preferable.
To be fair urban foxes are cuter than their rural counterparts who are usually a bit scrawny and rough looking as they have to rely on catching stuff to eat.
No, there's no definition of vermin, but we all know (broadly) what it means. But even vermin serve an ecological purpose. Foxes don't anymore (if indeed they ever did).
The ones I've seen in Balham look much better than the ones I see in Sussex. The rabbit population has collapsed so they all seem a bit hungry these days.
Oh yeah , that animal, it makes a noise, let’s shoot it. And it eats (from bins), let’s shoot it. And it has tics (unlike cats and dogs), let’s shoot it! ?
DD, I suggest you acquire some knowledge before accusing me of being full of shit. You clearly know very little, and are a coddled, Disneyfied little cupcake.
"In the city, I can't see how you can argue that foxes are anything but pests. They have no place and serve no purpose. Whilst they won't harm you, they do make one hell of a mess. And a lot of them suffer from diseases like mange, ticks and so on. "
Could the same not be said for lawyers, politicians and those street entertainers who pretend to be statues?
On rubbish collection day, as you walk the pavement, you can see black refuse sacks with the contents opened up and strewn across the pavement. It's an eyesore and makes life harder for binmen. Foxes just smell food and run amock.
No, they don't. This is the bit where you actually have to use your brain. I can see that that might be difficult.
What the sites show is current fox population levels in Britain (circa 258k), birth rates (425k cubs per year) and you can extrapolate to project rising population levels (even if you assume a mortality rate of 30%, which is high but not unreasonable). They don't have any natural predators, have plenty of food available and so an increase of an essentially functionless creature is inevitable.
I couldn't really give a fvck about fox hunting either way tbh. Foxes need to be controlled. I'd rather it was done in a more humane way but I can't get that excited about it. There are probably a thousand issues on the 'things to do for a more civilized society' that should be addressed before we get to fox hunting.
Hunt is playing to the rural base. Boris has more than a touch of the townie about him as former London mayor so it's not that daft a strategy given that an awful lot of those with a vote in the leadership election are countryside alliance types.
To deal with the urban fox menace, fox hunting needs to be brought up to date and made more relevant to modern youth. I propose replacing red jackets with red hoodies, horses with mountain bikes, hounds with pitbulls and hunting horns with WhatsApp groups. Once a fox is cornered, it can be humanely stabbed to death rather than torn to pieces by hounds.
Anyone fancy setting up the Islington & Hackney Fox Hunt with me?
The idea that all this political capital was spent in pursuit of unproven marginal benefits to animal welfare is clearly absurd. What the hunting debate has always been about is politics pure and simple. The Labour MPs who so obsessively pursued the ban were blatant about their motivation. Dennis Skinner did it “for the miners”, whilst Peter Bradley famously wrote that “now that hunting has been banned, we ought at last to own up to it: the struggle over the Bill was not just about animal welfare and personal freedom, it was class war”.
the fact politics may have been involved does not negate that animal welfare was primary
the quotation from Dennis Skinner entirely unsubstantited and the Peter Bradley quotation misrepresents the thrust of his actual article (which was about how hunting showed upper classes didn't care what other (lesser) people thought)
Foxes are vermin and kill for fun. Urbanites should listen to those who keep livestock. Urban foxes attack children. This time of year ought to be cub-hunting season, when foxes, no longer needed to be cared for by the vixen , are kicked out of the den. That is a further menace. The reason for stopping me voting Labour regularly is because they are more concerned about foxes (and badgers, grey squirrels) than people.
Wibble, one should be more concerned about the human victims of the DWP, the hostile anti-migrant Tory Govt, the fact that the Windrush generation have been fooked about, that publicly-funded areas of legal practice are being deliberately and systematically destroyed.
Funny how opposition to fox-hunting brings out the worst in so-called educated professionals. Anyway, Wibble, I'll return the complement.
Tthere is a lack of basic humanity on those who kill for fun. It permeates everything. May wanted to bring back foxhunting and she presided over most of your examples.
Also noted the use of true "whataboutism" to avoid the issue.
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maybe he misunderstood and didnt realise his surname was not an imperative. dangers of a classical "education"
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Not paying debts
re-legalizing barbaric fox hunting
nice! These tories are quite something
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What we really need is a method of dealing with urban foxes. Following a test by a friend I can confirm that concreting them into their dens does not work.
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Jagdreiten.
Big red rats.
I have lost 12 chickens to the fox.
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What is wrong with urban foxes? They are way cool! What harm do they do to you or in general? We have them in my area, I love them, always happy to see them
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fook them chickens, tough luck
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Because being known as Jeremy Fox-Hunt is preferable to being known as Jeremy Khunt.
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It might buy him a few votes in the leadership election but certainly not if he has to fight a GE.
Is there really anyone other than a very small section of society that wants this to come back?
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The urban fox population is out of control and makes a total mess of bins, etc. Don't get me started on the noise which is bad enough in the country when they're half a mile away rather than straight outside your window.
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Not really a fan of capital punishment, but I'd happily make an exception for anyone who is in any way involved in fox hunting. fooking barbaric savages the lot of them.
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The noise they make in parts of Islington is f*cking hilarious. Absolutely unearthly. Also, some of them can be quite aggressive with kids. Also, next door's dog goes absolutely mental for about half an hour every night when he's let out coz he can smell the fox den underneath their shed and the barking winds me up tbf.
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What kind of eejit proposed this btw?
Yes Jez, the way to win this and be PM for 100 years is to propose lits of laws you will definitely lose. we will start with the foxes. your surname is hunt so that will resonnate. no cant think of any downsidesor cheap gags with that one. maybe use some quentin blake drawings of fantastic mr fox with bojo's nabbba pasted on.
then something like no tax for people who own castles or have hyphenated surnames
then get rid of the nhs
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except that last one is what he's spent the last five years working on so doesn't deserve to be in a joke post
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Then propose to give each household a tube of smarties. Are you the "nasty party"? no, we're the "smartie party". would be great to get Sami Chakrabotti into this campaign.
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Will Smith music would help
"slow down girl you're gonna hurt somebody"
then hunt could get a bit more serious and delete all the homeless. I mean what are they good for (pr note, another campaign song). and humans are so like pigs we might be able to turn them into gammon. good stuff this, i am writing hunt the runt (chose to be the bigger man there) an invoice
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Ha
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Christ, talk about first world problems. Fox hunting is basically pest control. I am utterly equivocal about people getting dressed up on horseback to chase them down, but do agree that allowing dogs to kill them is unnecessarily cruel. Shoot them by all means though.
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TBF foxes are vermin and should be killed as humanely as possible. Fox hunting is a joke - if those that pursue it really cared about the countryside they'd use the money saved on the horses to employ people to do useful work.
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What other useful work do you have in mind Bananaman?
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Why pest? Why shoot them? What have they ever done to you? Are you crazy?
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he will be offering free votes on outlawing homosexuality and Islam and the compulsory attendance at CofE services next.
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Badman do you not think a society that allows the hunting and killing of animals for pleasure and sport is a bit debased, regardless of whether it sometimes necessary to kull as a reluctant last resort?
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Don’t try and tell me the culling of foxes is necessary, what bullshit
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I'm no fan of foxes (vermin) but on balance I do probably support a ban. There are more humane methods of despatch. It seems odd that it attracts such strong views on either side though.
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Basically wot the man from Acacia Avenue said up there ^
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Aside from the important animal welfare concerns dux the reason it attracts such strong views is that it is a class issue. Working class sport involving taking pleasure in harming animals was mostly banned decades ago or longer (badger baiting, dog fighting, cock fighting etc etc) fox hunting seemed to get special dispensation because the landed gentry (or now more often people pretending to be the landed gentry) do it
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There is something a little unsavoury about the bloodlust.
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hank yrusap
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It's interesting that, of the very few Conservatives (Lords and Commons) who supported the ban, most were ardent Brexiteers: most famously Widders, but also David Amess, etc.
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Duxm7 i don fink u kna what "interesting" means
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So far no one has been able to tell me why foxes are a pest
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to an extent you've got to dance with the one that brung you.
or whatever the quotation is.
but I do wonder why , having seen how toxic it was as a dog whistle issue last time you'd do it again. maybe the point is that the tree hugging hippies are never going to vote for a party that is committed to Brexit, so fvck it, go for the base.
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which is probably linked to this
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D-n7u-UXUAAUFfD.jpg:large
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DD King and Anonymous - it depends on the place, but yes, foxes are pests. You need to check your facts - these are good and (fairly) accurate websites:
http://www.thefoxwebsite.net/faq/
https://www.bbcwildlife.org.uk/urban-fox
What you need to bear in mind is that foxes are opportunistic predators and in the countryside (where I now live again) are a menace to poultry and need to have their numbers kept down. The problem is exacerbated by people leaving out their food waste in unsecured bins. As I've said, they're opportunistic, so will eat anything which is not shut away and food waste allows numbers to increase exponentially.
In the city, I can't see how you can argue that foxes are anything but pests. They have no place and serve no purpose. Whilst they won't harm you, they do make one hell of a mess. And a lot of them suffer from diseases like mange, ticks and so on.
That having been said, I don't think that hunting for pleasure is the best way of achieving population control. Shooting them is quick, not stressful and humane.
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Oh, they make a mess. Well in that case lets kill them all.
w**ker
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Foxes are a bloody nuisance, but there's no statutory definition of vermin, even under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. That doesn't mean they don't need to be controlled though. Agree with Badders that shooting is preferable.
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No need to make ad hominem remarks just because I'm advocating pest control. Try to have a little perspective.
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To be fair urban foxes are cuter than their rural counterparts who are usually a bit scrawny and rough looking as they have to rely on catching stuff to eat.
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No, there's no definition of vermin, but we all know (broadly) what it means. But even vermin serve an ecological purpose. Foxes don't anymore (if indeed they ever did).
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Are you joking, Sailers? Urban foxes are mangy, horrible things. Rural foxes may be smaller and skinnier, but look a lot more healthy on the whole.
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^completely Full of shit
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The ones I've seen in Balham look much better than the ones I see in Sussex. The rabbit population has collapsed so they all seem a bit hungry these days.
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You're thinking of sailors.
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Oh yeah , that animal, it makes a noise, let’s shoot it. And it eats (from bins), let’s shoot it. And it has tics (unlike cats and dogs), let’s shoot it! ?
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Oh give me a heh. Tough crowd.
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Go on then that gets a heh.
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DD, I suggest you acquire some knowledge before accusing me of being full of shit. You clearly know very little, and are a coddled, Disneyfied little cupcake.
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The links you have posted absolutely do not support the notion that foxes are pests, let alone that culling is necessary
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Do you have poultry? No
will it harm your cat/dog? No
Will it eat your hamster? One hamster in six years on average
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"In the city, I can't see how you can argue that foxes are anything but pests. They have no place and serve no purpose. Whilst they won't harm you, they do make one hell of a mess. And a lot of them suffer from diseases like mange, ticks and so on. "
Could the same not be said for lawyers, politicians and those street entertainers who pretend to be statues?
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On rubbish collection day, as you walk the pavement, you can see black refuse sacks with the contents opened up and strewn across the pavement. It's an eyesore and makes life harder for binmen. Foxes just smell food and run amock.
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No, they don't. This is the bit where you actually have to use your brain. I can see that that might be difficult.
What the sites show is current fox population levels in Britain (circa 258k), birth rates (425k cubs per year) and you can extrapolate to project rising population levels (even if you assume a mortality rate of 30%, which is high but not unreasonable). They don't have any natural predators, have plenty of food available and so an increase of an essentially functionless creature is inevitable.
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Isn't this a clear part of Hunt's no-deal Brexit preparation policy?
Foxes, pigeons, squirrels, rats.
It's all meat, lads. The family has to eat. Better foxes, squirrels and pigeons than the neighbours.
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Oh the big biologist at work here. Nearly 300k „functionless“ animals - let’s shoot them
and what are cats and dogs? Which function do they have?
mug
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Doesn't matter now. He's changed his mind.
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If he includes something about bringing back the Waterloo Cup I'd press our guy / gal / non-gender specific representative to vote for it.
(See what I did there so not to upset the lefties!)
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And how am I a mug, exactly?
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You normally come without a saucer?
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I couldn't really give a fvck about fox hunting either way tbh. Foxes need to be controlled. I'd rather it was done in a more humane way but I can't get that excited about it. There are probably a thousand issues on the 'things to do for a more civilized society' that should be addressed before we get to fox hunting.
Hunt is playing to the rural base. Boris has more than a touch of the townie about him as former London mayor so it's not that daft a strategy given that an awful lot of those with a vote in the leadership election are countryside alliance types.
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Here's the clincher: they eat hedgehogs occasionally.
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So do tories.
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To deal with the urban fox menace, fox hunting needs to be brought up to date and made more relevant to modern youth. I propose replacing red jackets with red hoodies, horses with mountain bikes, hounds with pitbulls and hunting horns with WhatsApp groups. Once a fox is cornered, it can be humanely stabbed to death rather than torn to pieces by hounds.
Anyone fancy setting up the Islington & Hackney Fox Hunt with me?
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I've never eaten a hedgehog. Once my garden is sorted I want to try and turn some of it into a hedgehog oasis.
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I beg to differ, Foolio. I usually come into a saucer (it's only polite when in company).
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DOESN'T MATTER NOW. HE'S CHANGED HIS MIND.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/jeremy-hunt-squirms-as-he-perform…
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What a aunt. I hate politicians. Their convictions only extend so far as keeps them popular with the public. The little weasels.
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The idea that all this political capital was spent in pursuit of unproven marginal benefits to animal welfare is clearly absurd. What the hunting debate has always been about is politics pure and simple. The Labour MPs who so obsessively pursued the ban were blatant about their motivation. Dennis Skinner did it “for the miners”, whilst Peter Bradley famously wrote that “now that hunting has been banned, we ought at last to own up to it: the struggle over the Bill was not just about animal welfare and personal freedom, it was class war”.
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jorrocks, your post is gibberish
the fact politics may have been involved does not negate that animal welfare was primary
the quotation from Dennis Skinner entirely unsubstantited and the Peter Bradley quotation misrepresents the thrust of his actual article (which was about how hunting showed upper classes didn't care what other (lesser) people thought)
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I'm sure I heard Skinner say something to that effect at the time. He's hardly representative of most normal Labour men though.
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Foxes are vermin and kill for fun. Urbanites should listen to those who keep livestock. Urban foxes attack children. This time of year ought to be cub-hunting season, when foxes, no longer needed to be cared for by the vixen , are kicked out of the den. That is a further menace. The reason for stopping me voting Labour regularly is because they are more concerned about foxes (and badgers, grey squirrels) than people.
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SecularJurist you seem to be a stupid and ignorant aunt, Thanks for the heads up.
PS I corrected your opening line for you:
Fox hunters are vermin and kill for fun
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Wibble, one should be more concerned about the human victims of the DWP, the hostile anti-migrant Tory Govt, the fact that the Windrush generation have been fooked about, that publicly-funded areas of legal practice are being deliberately and systematically destroyed.
Funny how opposition to fox-hunting brings out the worst in so-called educated professionals. Anyway, Wibble, I'll return the complement.
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Tthere is a lack of basic humanity on those who kill for fun. It permeates everything. May wanted to bring back foxhunting and she presided over most of your examples.
Also noted the use of true "whataboutism" to avoid the issue.
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If this must be done then it must be under the banner of equality.
Bring back bear-baiting and dog- and cock- fighting for the pleb masses and *then* bring back fox hunting.
Everyone's happy.
Sorted.
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I see that even tory party members did not think that foxhunting was a vote winner.
heh
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