SHOULD FIELD SPORTS GO?
By MICHAEL BERRY
"The Spectator" last week published an article by Mr. Anthony Greenwood, M.P., in support of the Blood Sports Bill which a group of M.P.s are hoping to introduce as a Private Member's measure. In the article which follows Mr. Michael Berry, Master of
the Woodland Pytchley Hunt, states the case against the Bill.
IT is most confusing that the supporters of hunting should be attacked on so many divergent charges. The chief complaint is that, to take the case of foxhunting, the foxhunters kill the fox and therefore are cruel to the fox. There is, however, a very strong subsidiary complaint that they do not kill foxes often enough and therefore are cruel to the poultry-keeper. Some say that foxes would soon be extinct were it not for the preservation afforded by the foxhunters. Others like to imagine rural England as a nature reserve where the fox might live untroubled—but not too ostentatiously— if only the foxhunters would leave him alone.
It is only fair to add that the foxhunters defend their sport by equally confusing replies. Indeed, the truth is that there is no uniformity, and it is most unfair and inaccurate to argue from the particular to the general. It may be that so many poultry are kept in the county of Middlesex that foxes cannot be tolerated there. That is no reason, however, why foxhunting should be prohibited on Dartmoor, in the Lake District or in the Yorkshire Dales, where there are vast acreages on which no one would dream of keeping poultry. As for extinction of the fox, in some districts—open arable country for instance—it is comparatively easy to shoot him or dig him out, and no doubt the game-preservers would soon eliminate him there. It is a very different story, however, in thickly-wooded or mountainous neighbourhoods. There are no foxhounds in Northern Ireland, but there are plenty of foxes and they do much damage. Nor are they destroyed with a humane killer, but rather with buckshot, gin traps and poison. Killing foxes is like killing rabbits or rats. It is possible but it is expensive and troublesome and—it is never humane. It is quite certain that, if Parliament should put a stop to foxhunting, the foxes would not disappear during the following night. The poultry-keepers would then look to the State to destroy the foxes—and will the State be more humane than private enterprise ?
It should be added that still further confusion is caused by the different styles of hunting. Some think the wild deer ought not to be killed. Others think that the carted deer is killed, when in fact he is not. Incidentally some critics think carted stag- hunting the cruellest of sports. Personally I have only twice been out with carted staghounds, but on both occasions the deer seemed to be on the most friendly terms with the hounds. One deer would not run at all, but stood among the hounds. After all he lived at the kennels and knew them well. I can honestly say that on neither day did I see a deer frightened or exhausted. Admittedly a long chase often occurs before the carted deer is recaptured. Equally, having fallen off, I often have to chase my own horse out hunting, but he is not frightened of me—merely contemptuous. where is the cruelty in carted stag-hunting ?
It would be tedious to argue here all the details of whether harm is done to the land by riding over it or whether the nation can afford hunting from the economic angle. It is surely enough to say that the best judges of the economics are the farmers themselves, and the recent votes of the county branches of the N.F.U. show an overwhelming majority in favour of continuing the sport as at present. On the moral aspect perhaps there is rather more to be said. " Killing for fun" is the charge too often levelled against the foxhunter, and a grossly unfair charge it is.
I happen to be the Master and huntsman of a pack of foxhounds. As such I am responsible for killing a few foxes every year, but I do not kill foxes for fun. I kill them because I cannot have the fun, which consists of the riding and the handling of the hounds, without the killing. If I take on responsibility for the fox's exist- ence, I must also take on responsibility for his death. In just the same way, when I fatten bullocks, eventually I have to get the butcher to kill them. I do not enjoy killing bullocks or foxes. I am pleased when the hounds have a good hunt and kill their fox because that is their object—and mine. Many, many days elapse, however, when we do not kill a fox. For several hunting days together I may never see a fox. Incidentally, may I dispel the illusion that the hounds are normally a hundred yards or so behind the fox and that the Chase can fairly be compared to chasing a cat or a rat in an alley ? Unless it happens to be a good scenting day the fox not only is likely to escape, but is most unlikely even to be hurried by the hounds.
It is curious that shooting somehow appeals to the humanitarian as the merciful death. It is easy to think that shooting means- wht! A bullet comes from nowhere, without warning, lodges in the fox's brain and kills him. Admittedly that would be most humane, but is it ever likely to happen ? My experience of shooting foxes is very different. Our county Pests Officer sometimes asks me to bring the foxhounds to stir up the Forestry Commission's plantations, which normally are very seldom hunted. Incidentally, that would indicate that the Pests Officer reckons it difficult to find and destroy foxes in these plantations without the help of fox- hounds. So presumably, if Parliament should decide to stop me from hunting the fox "for fun," the county Pests Officer will presumably go on hunting the fox " for business "—and will the foxes be any the better off ?
As I was saying, we loose the foxhounds in the plantations. The Pests Officer arrays his shooters on the rides. They are not armed with rifles, such as might direct a single humane bullet into the fox's brain, because that might kill another shooter—or a forester— or, indeed, me. They carry shotguns of course, which emit a cloud of small shot with a very limited range. Usually a fox, when disturbed by the hounds, slips across a ride or a clearing midway between two gunners, one or both of whom takes a long shot al him. Some of the shot may strike the fox in the head or the heart and kill him. More often the fox, who has a tough skin, staggers but goes on—probably hit in the stomach. If we are close by with the hounds-we lay them on the line of the fox and the hounds may run up to him and kill him. Otherwise he presumably dies of wounds a day or two later. Is shooting' really more humane than hunting ?
The humanitarians argue that a fox killed by the hounds is " torn limb from limb while still alive," and assume that he goes through the same mental processes as a man who is mauled by a tiger. I know they are wrong in the first case, and I think they are wrong in the second. Many a time a single foxhound (and often, incidentally, a single sheepdog) has been seen to run up to a fox, kill it with one bite and then leave it. One bite through the neck or across the back is quite enough, and personally I am quite sure that it is as quick as a bullet in the brain. What particular virtue is there in a bullet beyond inability to see it coming ? It merely severs the spinal cord or something of that sort. A tooth (or a knife for that matter) does exactly the same. When a pack of hounds kills a fox, only the leading hound catches the fox and kills him. What the humanitarian sees, if he ever sees anything, is the rest of the pack coming up and trying to seize a limb of the dead fox. As for the mental picture, frankly I am not sure. Nor can anyone be sure. I rather think, however, that if the pack is obviously going to overtake him, the fox says to himself—" Well, flight has failed me. What about fight ? " And, indeed, he often does bite the leading hound. Probably death and the fear of death never enter his head.
If this subject is in fact to be debated on the floor of the House of Commons, of whom the great majority of members have probably never seen a fox or a deer, may I make the following suggestions ? Do not endow the fox (or deer or hare) with human vision. Do not confuse his instincts with those of domesticated animals, which can, and often do, fear man. The fox does not fear man. Why should he ? Flight is automatic—not the result of fear. Do not assume that foxhunters are a race apart, delighting to wallow in blood and selfishly inflicting grievous loss on the farmer or the poultry-keeper. I am a foxhunter, but I am also a farmer and a poultry-keeper and, in general, I know and share their outlook without the least affectation. If I offended them, by riding on their land when it was too wet or by tolerating too many foxes in our neighbourhood, they would very soon let me know. Leave it to them.
Finally may I say, perfectly honestly, that I have hunted for some thirty years and I have been a Master of Hounds for nearly three years. Naturally I have talked about hunting to many hundreds of country men and women. Most of them know how foxes live and how they die. Never once has anyone said to me personally that hunting ought to be stopped. In my opinion this move to abolish hunting is entirely artificial—the misdirected efforts of some townsfolk to bring the fox into the same social security scheme as the dog and the cat. Frankly I believe the fox would rather, as we say in the country, have his own little independence, continuing to lead his natural life and to die his natural death.
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