Silence of the hounds

AS the hunting season draws to a close, its not just the wildlife that can breathe a sigh of relief: many villagers and their pets can soon enjoy the peace and tranquillity that comes with the summer months.

For myself, I can forget (for a while) the anguish of knowing hunts are out and about terrorising foxes, deer and hare and enjoy my hill walks without fear of coming across a hunt in progress.

Enjoying the peace and solitude of the Welsh mountains - without a baying pack in sight

The sound of that blasted horn always sends a shiver down my spine, so God knows what it does to a lone animal being pursued by a baying pack of hounds. 

But for now, the chase is over, though the debate I'm sure will rage on.

We all know that the hunters have power and wealth behind them and that they have the Countryside Alliance to fight their corner.

We may have a so-called ban, but it's not being enforced because the Government who drafted it in don't want to be bothered with it.

They could if they wanted, as suggested by my husband, make hunts muzzle their hounds. They could also stop them from using the fox urine 'excuse' on so-called trail hunts.

We also have LACS (League Against Cruel Sports) but it's been forced to sell off property in London and move its headquarters to keep going. But while we anti-hunt supporters lack power and wealth, we do have truth on our side.

When trying to debate the fox hunting issue - hunters always seek to intimidate and bully those who oppose them into submission, with arguments that have no proof.

For instance, they don't know how many foxes there are in the countryside, but tell us hunting is necessary to keep their numbers down.

They claim to kill mainly sick and elderly animals. If this is true, then how can they justify it as control? 

 Then they tried to persuade us that they hunt these animals out of welfare for them - and we're supposed to believe that!.

They also insist that hunting is vital to the rural economy, yet never tell us exactly how this has been calculated.

Sometimes diversionary tactics are necessary

I even heard one hunt supporter say that the fox nearly always escapes the hunt, then in the same breath go on to say that if hunting was stopped, farmers would have to resort to shooting these animals to control their numbers.

I doubt she even realised the hypocrisy of that statement. 

One anti-hunt campaigner had it right though, when he said, "All arguments put forward from the pro-hunt lobby were pretty much an insult to the intelligence of the average person.

"I suggest that anyone from any background, who has watched a tame carted deer running for its life, or witnessed hounds ripping a fox apart (which has sometimes been thrown live to the hounds), would be ashamed to be classified as a member of a human race that brags about possessing a higher intelligence."

In the words of Thomas A Edison, "Non- violence leads to higher ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages".