Fox Hunting with Dogs Outlawed in Britain

LONDON, UK, November 19, 2004 (ENS) - There will be no more fox hunting with hounds in the United Kingdom. After years of quarrelling over a ban on fox hunting, Parliament voted last night to end the practice as of February 2005. Animal welfare campaigners are today celebrating their historic victory in the fight to improve animal welfare, but hunt supporters threatened legal action and warned of civil disobedience during the next election.

Government proposals to delay implementation of the Hunting Bill until July 2006 were rejected by peers in the House of Lords.

Rural Affairs Minister Alun Michael said, "the hunting community has known for many years that it would have to prepare for change."

Thanksgiving 2003 Blessing of the Hounds (Photo courtesy Troop 1028)

"The hunting community say that they are law abiding people so we expect those involved in hunting to cease their activity when they are required by law to do so," said Michael.

After February 18, 2005, anyone caught chasing a wild mammal with a dog faces a fine of 5,000 pounds if convicted.

Elected members of parliament in the House of Commons have voted nine times by substantial majorities in favor of a ban on hunting with dogs in the past, but they have always been blocked by the unelected House of Lords.

This time, the hunting ban became law under little used UK legislation, known as the Parliament Act. It is invoked when the two houses cannot reach agreement to ensure that the will of the democratically elected House of Commons prevails. The Scottish Parliament banned the practice

A ban on hunting with dogs has strong support in the UK. In a MORI public opinion poll in November 2003, 76 percent of those polled said hunting with dogs should not be legal. Eighty-two percent said deer hunting should be illegal, 77 percent said hare hunting and coursing should be illegal, and 69 percent thought fox hunting should be illegal.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), and the League Against Cruel Sports have been working together to end hunting of foxes, deer, hares and mink with dogs since 1996 through a joint initiative known as Campaigning to Protect Hunted Animals.

Phyllis Campbell-McRae, UK director of IFAW, said, "It has been a long, hard campaign, won by the determination of tens of thousands of people in urban and rural communities who are dedicated to protecting animals from senseless cruelty.”

The red fox, Vulpes vulpes is the object of the hunt. Around 21,000 foxes are killed by hunts each year and a number of others are shot as undesireable animals that prey on livestock. (Photo credit unknown)

Countryside Alliance Chief Executive Simon Hart expressed the disappointment of the pro-hunting side, saying, "The rural minority cannot possibly bring down the government, but there is an absolute determination amongst many thousands of people who feel betrayed by Labour to work for a government which better represents them."

Hunts and hunting people make up the UK's largest community conservation organization, the Countryside Alliance says. "By attacking them the government is flouting its obligations, defined in international conventions, to engage with local communities in achieving biodiversity objectives."

Seventy percent of hunt groups are involved in conservation activities and together they manage 23,000 hectares of mostly broadleaved woodland in the UK, the Countryside Alliance said in a recent presentation to Parliament. Hunters say they plant hedgerows, conserve rare species such as butterflies, and enhance Sites of Special Scientific Interest.

But anti-hunt campaigners are celebrating the long-awaited ban in England and Wales on what they see as a "cruel" activity, the hunting of foxes with dogs.

Douglas Batchelor, chief executive of the League Against Cruel Sports said, "The ban on the barbaric sports of hunting and coursing with dogs is a great and long overdue advance for animal welfare. To hunt, to chase, and to kill animals for sport will now be a crime as well as a morally reprehensible act. For a civilised and democratic society, this change is a great advance and we should all celebrate the end of the legal, ritualized and serial abuse of animals by people in the name of sport."

John Rolls, RSPCA director of animal welfare promotion, said, "This new legislation reflects modern society's abhorrence of cruelty to wild animals which has, for too long, been veiled in the bloody cloak of tradition and prejudice."

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs says that about seven out of 10 members of the public, including a majority in rural areas, oppose hunting with dogs. This has been fairly consistent for years, although individual polls can show differing results, the department says.

The exemptions from the offense of illegal hunting permit the following types of hunting with hounds:

• Stalking and flushing out
  
• Below ground, in the course of stalking and flushing out, to protect birds for shooting
  
• Hunting rats and rabbits
  
• Retrieval of hares which have been shot
  
• Falconry
  
• Recapture of wild mammals
  
• Rescue of wild mammals
  
• Research and observation

"To willingly inflict unnecessary suffering on another sentient being is intolerable," said Rolls, "and for this reason the RSPCA heralds this ban on hunting with dogs as marking a watershed in the development of a more civilized society for people and animals."