No worries I don't think anyone here is implying Debs is one of those @r$es.
"Tally Ho !" indeed. Most are nothing but a bunch of obnoxious, self opinionated, horse faced, in-bred pratts !! 

And before anyone jumps to their defence by claiming that I'm unfairly stereotyping, all I can say is that being raised in south west Wales and having between 28 to 30 horses at any given time, I would often meet these people at various events and could spot them in an instant.
Absolutely no time for them, whatsoever ! 

Fox Hunting: "The unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible" as Oscar Wilde would have it.

Whilst not in any way aligning myself with the 'toss-pots' that seem attracted to the social scene they perceive hunting on horseback to be: I do think that hunting on foot with hounds (without the 'arses-on-horses', as previously practiced hereabouts) did keep the Fox population down to reasonable levels.....since the 'ban' it has become extemely difficult to control Foxes using 'legal' methods, especially as many "non-local" (holiday-visitors/incomers) people seem hyper-motivated to summon Police/RSPCA attention upon seeing ANY rural-hunting activity (even when legally sanctioned).

[irony] It is a fact that (like Rats) Foxes are overpopulate vermin: perhaps we rural folk might impose a ban on town`s folk killing/trapping/poisoning urban Rats.....they are kind of cute![/irony]

Varche wrote on 28. May 2009 at 09:39:


You must originally come from Yorkshire then?


Seriously; some 'old-timers' hereabouts still use strychnine-laced earthworms to kill moles.

Poisoning is a horrible death for any animal: Strychnine particularly-so; even in tiny concentrations.....I favour acute "lead poisoning" (administered as the 12 gauge 'bolus') for all pests; it`s quick and causes minimal suffering.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strychnine

Lets not forget that while vermin they do have a very large benefit for nature in that they are like sharks and clean up by eating dead carcasses and the weaker wildlife that should not procreate, but they need to be controlled and I agree that the rapid application of lead is the best way.

Being an Officer of her majesty's armed forces I may be stereotyped into the fox-hunting crowd and in fact I know of few of that 'set'.  If I recall correctly the dogs rarely manage to catch a fox as he is much quicker and can fit in small burrows and often a fox will be chased until it goes to ground.  Penned in by terrier, it is then dug out by a specially trained keeper who will shoot it point blank.  Not as humane as the rapid application of lead but not as dispicable as some suggest it is.

I hold my German hunting license which if anyone knows what you have to do to get it fosters a responsibility on the hunter to make sure that the correct animal is culled, humanely and quickly.  Any game injured is tracked often for tens of kilometers and put out of its misery, but we try and avoid that as best we can.  The seasons for different animals and even ages and sex are closely monitored, the punishments for not following them are swift and harsh (often very expensive)

We have a deer population in the UK that is twice as large as it should be and we know have pockets of wild boar which grow on a scale of 9 every season.  Considering that they can cover upto 80km in one night, very soon they will be prevalent throughout our countryside. 

In Berlin they dont have foxes in urban areas they have boar! 

Guffer wrote on 28. May 2009 at 13:58:

And in Sweden they have moose,s  both the moose and a boar will make a right mess off of your car if you hit one , having seen the aftermath of both creatures hitting a car and a truck. The boar got up and run away from the car and the moose did £14k's worth of damage to a scania 143 and no it was'nt at the same time just in case some smart alec ask's The moose was up on the way to stokholm and the boar was out the way of the kent /sussex border out back of Tunbridge Wells