You can’t keep a good hunter down.

last updated 8 January 2015

United Kingdom

Jonathan Brown

Those fox hunters are a stubborn lot, said Jonathan Brown in the London Independent. The traditional hunt, in which riders on horseback follow a pack of dogs on the trail of a fox, was outlawed earlier this year. The hunt’s final act, when the dogs kill the fox by tearing it to shreds, was deemed too cruel, even if it had centuries of tradition behind it. But there’s still plenty of fox hunting going on in the English countryside. This autumn, “the sound of the foxhounds in full cry” is ringing out across Exmoor and other areas. The hunters claim their dogs are drag-hunting, a legal practice in which dogs follow pre-laid trails of fox urine. Animal-rights advocates, though, have film footage showing that the dogs are pursuing live foxes. They want the police to put a stop to this blatant “flouting of the law.” But the rural cops lack the manpower—not to mention the will—to do much. “Hunting takes place in remote areas, and policing it is a logistical nightmare.” After all, the ban is not absolute. It allows pack owners to exercise their hounds by riding after them. If the dogs find a fox, what’s to prevent them from chasing and killing it? Parliament spent about 700 hours getting the ban passed. This season will test whether that “will prove to be time well spent.”