UK fox hunters accused of using baby foxes to train dogs to kill

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...ion-claims-animal-cruelty-south-herefordshire

The investigation, which will be chaired by the former appeal court judge Sir John Chadwick, will look into the South Herefordshire Hunt, where three people have been arrested on suspicion of causing suffering to animals.

It comes after footage was released that animal rights campaigners claim shows evidence of “cubbing”, using fox cubs to train hounds to hunt and kill the animals.

In the footage, filmed by the Hunt Investigation Team supported by the League Against Cruel Sports, an individual can be seen carrying a fox cub into a barn where hounds are kennelled and baying, and later disposing of a dead fox in a wheelie bin.

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Hunting foxes with dogs has been banned for more than a decade, with hunts now allowed to participate in “drag hunting” where an artificial scent is laid for the hounds to track.

But animal rights campaigners claim live fox cubs are being kept and used by hunts to train hounds to kill, or as a ready supply of foxes to hunt.

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ElaineA said:

What kinds of disgusting idiots are these people? I have 2 terriers, both instinctive hunters, both historically bred for it. I don't have to train them to do a damn thing if hunting is what I want them to do. If they're off-leash, I can't stop them. (Which is why they're never off-leash in the woods anymore.)

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This BBC story may help clarify:

Fox cubs filmed 'being put into hounds' kennels'

The ban on hunting with hounds, introduced in 2005, made it illegal to intentionally pursue foxes with a pack of dogs.

However, unintentional kills are not banned. It is claimed some hunts deliberately engineer situations where foxes are killed.

Chief executive of the League Against Cruel Sports, Eduardo Goncalves, said: "The hounds won't naturally kill foxes so they must be taught to do so and this footage exposes the gruesome training secrets of hunts in the UK."

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(Bolding mine). In other words, if a hunt just happens to chance across a real fox and the dogs just happen to kill it, no one is punished for it.

Oh, and how do the hunts ensure that they happen to run across real foxes?

They encourage the breeding of foxes with specially-built artificial dens, take the fox babies to train their dogs to kill them, and (animal rights activists say) release them near active hunts, knowing the hunters can shrug and claim it was an "unintentional" kill if anyone complains.

The BBC was shown a so-called artificial earth in another part of the country where the League Against Cruel Sports claimed piping and paving slabs had been used to create tunnels for foxes.

A saucepan nearby appeared to provide a source of water to drink.

Mr Goncalves said such constructions "blew away the myth that fox hunting has got anything to do with controlling the fox population - this is a cruel sport, pure and simple".

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While the pro-fox-hunting group the Countryside Alliance could not deny that the constructions were specifically built to attract and breed foxes, it rather blandly "said that historically gamekeepers routinely encouraged foxes to breed in specific areas."