Fox Hunting

Ever since New Stone Age when people started keeping hens, farmers and foxes have been enemies. 

  

In the wild, a fox will hunt and kill a single animal of prey and take it back to its den to eat or to keep.

 

But on a farm, in a hen house, where there are many birds, a fox will kill all it can, although it can only take one hen back to its den. The fox may try to bury some of its kill. This seems cruel and pointless. But if you are a hunter, you never know when you will catch your next meal, so you have to kill what you can when you can.

   

From the earliest times farmers have always tried to stop foxes stealing their hens.

 

In the 16th century (Tudor times) a Norfolk farmer began to train his dogs to track and and find and kill foxes. 

  

Instead of killing foxes when they attacked the hen house, farmers started to go out to hunt foxes.

  

By the 18th century fox hunting was not just a way of protecting the farmers' hens, it became a 'sport'. Wealthy lords could afford to keep packs of dogs trained to hunt.

 

The evening before a fox hunt the lord and his rich friends got together for a feast. The next day they rode out on their horses following the hunting dogs.

 

A hunt was also an event that the local farmers and country people would join in. For them it was not a 'sport', it was a way of killing the animals that were killing their chickens and lambs.

(See also Pies and Cheese.)

 

 

Foxhunting became more and more popular in the 19th century. The railways meant that people from the towns and cities could come and take part or watch.

 

And fox hunting remained popular well into the 20th century. 

 

 

By the end of the 17th century there was no woodland left in the Vale of Belvoir. All the land was farmland.

 

But in the 19th century, landlords began to plant new woods. This was not for the value of the trees - it was to provide cover for foxes.  

 

Now this is strange!

• The purpose of fox hunting is to kill the foxes who eat the farmers' hens. If you killed all the foxes, that would be good for the farmers. 
• But the purpose of fox hunting as a 'sport' is to have a good day out, riding horses in the countryside and killing a fox at the end of it. Killing all the foxes would not be good for the people who enjoyed fox hunting as a sport. 

 

Lords and wealthy landowners wanted there to be foxes! so they could hunt them. The woodland coverts were planted to encourage foxes so there would be foxes to hunt.

 

John Musters of Wiverton Hall near Langar was the Master of the South Nottinghamshire Fox Hounds. He planted woodland coverts and dug artificial earths (fox dens) in them, so that he would have foxes to hunt. 

 

 

John Musters wrote a poem about his love of fox hunting:

  

The South Notts Hunt 1833

 

On the ancient Foss road I arrived rather late –

Bold Reynard I spied creeping under a gate;

He had stolen away from Cropwell Hoe Hill, Whilst the hounds in the cover were challenging still.

 

A pause for one moment. Away with suspense!

Hark! The horn blows aloud – they are over the fence.

See the pack are all streaming breast-high down the hill,

And the scent is so good they are certain to kill.                               (Extract)

 

Note: Reynard is the old nickname for a fox.

 

Not everyone was happy about fox hunting.

 

In the 1850s there were people who went out to try to stop fox hunts because they thought it was cruel to the foxes. 

    

The playwright, Oscar Wilde wrote that 'the English country gentleman galloping after a fox' was 'the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable.'

 

He was complaining about rich lords as much as about the cruelty of fox hunting.

 

Fox hunting groups started using dogs to follow trails - trail hunting. There is no fox.

 A scented trail is laid across the countryside and the dogs follow it. It is like fox hunting - but with no fox.

  

 

Since the Hunting Act was passed, fox hunts (without foxes) have become more popular. There are now 176 foxhound packs in England and Wales.

  

However, some anti-hunting campaigners complain that hunts only pretend to follow trails and that foxes are still killed by dogs.