Quote:
Originally Posted by Aladdin
There are countless reports of foxes being disemboweled alive and torn limb from limb by the dogs, so let's put paid to the myth that death is instantaneous shall we? It might happen from time to time, but it certainly does not happen all the time or, judging by reports, very often at all.
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Really? Not quite sure where you got that from, but the BBC, and more accurately, Oxford University's Wildlife Conservation Unit, the 1949 Scott Henderson inquiry (commissioned by the Labout gov't of the day) along with research conducted by Chris Barnard and Jane Hurst at Nottingham University seems to suggest otherwise.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/418681.stm (from 1999, at the time of the debates).
Indeed, David McDonald, the chap at Oxford, states: "The fox does not anticipate death, so is not unduly traumatised by the pursuit. And the alternatives - shooting, gassing, snaring or poisoning - would all inflict much more pain and suffering on the foxes. Already, 10 times as many foxes are shot each year than are hunted to death. That figure would only increase if hunting was banned."
From the Henderson inquiry: ""A popular myth is that the fox is killed by being torn apart by a pack of hounds when it is still alive. This is not true."
Additional research is also quite interesting: "They also say that foxhunting is crucial to conservation of the species. Figures on the Foxman website show that during the Second World War, when fox hunting ceased, the fox population went into decline, because farmers took to shooting them all. "