The Scottish Ban: Good for Terriers, Bad for Fox

The Scotland on Sunday newspaper reports:

Fox killings double since ban

Scots hunts despatch twice as many animals with marksmen outdoing hounds



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THE ban on hunting with dogs in Scotland has resulted in a doubling of the number of foxes killed, it emerged last night.

New figures obtained by Scotland on Sunday show that large numbers of foxes are now being shot by hunters, and dozens of the animals continue to be legally killed by hounds.

Scotland biggest hunt, the Buccleuch, killed an average of 50 foxes a season prior to the ban.

Figures produced by the huntsmen themselves show that for 2003-04, it alone killed more than 100.

The revelation has focused attention on the effectiveness of the hunting ban in Scotland. It follows a tumultuous week in Westminster where MPs controversially held out for a total ban south of the Border in the face of fierce opposition from the Lords and countryside campaigners.

The Scottish ruling, enforced in 2002, banned hunts from using packs of hounds to kill foxes, with MSPs claiming that such a "barbaric" act could no longer be tolerated in a modern Scotland.

It still allows hunts to use their dogs to 'flush' the animals out into the open, so that waiting guns can shoot them. Hounds still kill those foxes which are not fast enough to out-run them.

Instead of protecting foxes the law appears to have had the effect of creating several new ways of killings foxes, which has led to record figures for the main Scottish hunts.

Weak foxes are being killed as before by hounds, while those that escape are being killed by guns. Furthermore, prior to the ban, a fox was deemed to have 'won' if it managed to get underground before being chased down by the hounds. Hunts now, however, send terriers in after the fox and then shoot it when it emerges overground.

Scotland on Sunday has figures for four of the main hunts in Scotland, which found that a total of 35 foxes last year were killed by hounds without breaking the law.

In the 2003-04 season, the Buccleuch Hunt in Dumfriesshire killed 103 foxes, or just over one for each of the 101 days it set out.

Of that number, 58 foxes were shot by guns, 19 were killed by hounds who chased them down before they could be shot and a further 26 were shot after being chased out of a bolthole.

Huntmaster Trevor Adams said: "The figures for last year are twice as many as they were prior to the Watson bill. What you are looking at is one fox killed for every day's hunting."

The Berwickshire Hunt, which set out on 57 days of the year during the same season, killed a total of 51 foxes. Of those, 37 were shot by waiting marksmen, six were trapped by hounds and a further 18 were shot after being flushed from holes. Prior to the ban, the hunt killed on average between 30 and 40 foxes a year.

Sandy Thompson, master of the Berwickshire Hunt, said: "In my view there is more suffering for the fox now because as anyone who knows who has been clay-pigeon shooting, they don't hit it every time.

"Foxes are not easily shot and they are very tough animals. Thankfully, my guns [marksmen] have learnt a great deal since the ban came into force, but it does happen that you only wound the animal and it gets away and suffers for far longer," he added.

The Fife Hunt recorded a similar figure to Berwickshire. A total of 58 foxes were killed; 45 shot, nine killed by hounds and four shot after escaping from boltholes.

Meanwhile, the Kincardineshire Hunt killed a total of 82 foxes, with all but one killed by guns. Allan Murray, director of the Scottish Countryside Alliance, said hunts were not breaking the law by still killing foxes with hounds, because the intention was simply to flush the animals out to guns.

"But if it so happens that the fox is old or diseased then the hounds will account for it," he said. "Some foxes only wake up to what is happening too late. A hound is bred to the job. You can't train them to do otherwise."

The ban also meant that for the first time hunts were using terriers to drive foxes out of holes, he said. "Previously, if a fox went to ground, then it had won but because of these regulations, the hunt will now send in a terrier because it is a pest control service. This is nothing to do with animal welfare. The landowner who wants us as a pest control service doesn't want us to leave the fox in there."

Ross Minnett, from the campaign group Advocates for Animals, said the ban had at least curtailed "the brutal and barbaric practice of foxes being torn apart by a pack of dogs".

The Scottish ban is now set to be copied in England following last week's vote in the House of Commons to outlaw the practice from next February.

The government had tried to delay the enforcement of the ban but it is now set to become a powderkeg issue for ministers, coming immediately in the run-up to the widely expected general election next May.

Pro-hunt campaigners have promised to fight the ban in the courts and a series of major protests across the country.

Scotland has just 10 hunts but there are 318 packs in England and Wales. Around 8,000 jobs depend on hunting.