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Tally Ho - Oh Non ! Not in France, what a Quirck...


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I don't think at any time have I said that foxes are not considered "vermin" in France Debra, far from it, they are hunted throughout the season and as I mentioned dug out, cubs and all, I am even more intrigued by the fact that your "Reserve de Chasse" recently given to you by the President of your local chasse apparently doesn't stop the Chasse if they feel like it??? Hmmm...    When you have Reserve de Chasse or Chasse Interdite that is prohibited without specific Prefectorial arret which requires evidence of severe damage and can be contested at tribunal.

Like your frog Gay, we could do with some of those around here, sadly missing or at best scarce in south west France. I assume it is a common frog, it appears to be although not very marked, where was it?

It is possible to discuss foxes and to have concerns about the other problems in the world Quillan and I am sorry to hear that in your region the Chat Forestier is still persecuted, especially as it is one of a very small number of mammals with article 1 protection in France.

Cheers, Chris

 

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The frog was seen hopping about last Sunday evening (we are in the UK, Thames Valley) We either saw the same one, or its brother last year - they are very pale.

We have a small pond and were thrilled to see two frogs last year but they both seemed to succumb to 'red leg' we are hoping this year we will have more luck.

Although we are only a mile from the river, we are in a very suburban situation, therefore it has been quite a surprise to see a heron land in our garden a couple of times (no fish in the pond, wildlife only)

Sorry - a bit off topic ! Back to foxes, although we see and hear foxes (we are not far from a large cemetery where I think there are quite a few) they really are no trouble - yet !

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I didn't say you had said it Chris - I saw on one message on the thread something that implied that they were only hunted as vermin in the UK.  I could trawl back and find the post but I'm a bit busy right now.  You seem doubtful about the veracity of what we have been told by the local hunt guy and scornful that they will still hunt vermin (carefully and only if evidence of them are found in the area - and which we didn't have a problem with as the locals believe both the animals mentioned cause them problems) - as I said on another post, I'll let you know how it pans out, but for the moment we prefer as always to give people the benefit of the doubt and believe them rather than assume they are lying or stringing us along in some way.  All the people involved in the chat seemed very genuine. 
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No, it isn't that I am being doubtful exactly, it's just that a piece of land is either no hunting or it is land which can be hunted but people choose not to, if you see what I mean and they are not the same thing. As I said, I am intrigued, as what is being said seems to relate to the pre 1999 situation of "when in pursuit"

As I said before, I am pleased that it has worked out for you and an amicable arrangement is no bad thing, the LPO has them with hunters in some regions in the east of France, they agree not to shoot certain birds and get an extension on their season - all legal!!

Best, Chris

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Not in France! Whether that is the case or not in the UK you would need to provide evidence

If you think that we should go around killing anything that looks as though it may be a bit old, lame (lame?) or infirm for the greater benefit of wildlife, where would you suggest that we draw the line, sparrows.

Come on, get serious

 

I would suggest you get serious I see very little evidence in your dodgy opinions and yes if I saw a sparrow suffering needlessly then I would not walk by on the other side of the road I would put it out of its misery

Chris

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other Chris.. 

putting something out of its misery, if you are sure and have the expertise to know that it can't recover with assistance, is not the same as hounding something, digging it out of the ground or sending dogs after it to see if it can get away and then coming to the conclusion that if it can't get away it must have been weak or ill, so we did it a favour and we can go home patting ourselves on the back having saved a few foxes from a natural end. 

As you will know from my other postings, I don't have a problem with regulation where it is required, I do have a problem with "dodgy" (to use your terminology) excuses for carrying out certain acts. It would be preferable if people who like killing foxes were up front about it and just said so, in fact it says something about people that enjoy this "sport" that there is a continual need to justify it as if they were doing the rest of society a great service.

Cheers, Chris.

 

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I don't think that a lame or sick fox is going to provide the 'sport' most hunters seek ! Or have they all got chrystal bowls and can tell which fox is oldest, just about to get some disease etc ?

I did not say that only the old weak and diseased are hunted you do not need a crystal ball  to know that those that are in a weaked state will be easier to catch.

Chris

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putting something out of its misery, if you are sure and have the expertise to know that it can't recover with assistance, is not the same as hounding something, digging it out of the ground or sending dogs after it to see if it can get away and then coming to the conclusion that if it can't get away it must have been weak or ill, so we did it a favour and we can go home patting ourselves on the back having saved a few foxes from a natural end. 

 

you are putting words in my mouth I did not say that all hunted foxes are weak or ill.

 

 

I do have a problem with "dodgy" (to use your terminology) excuses for carrying out certain acts. It would be preferable if people who like killing foxes were up front about it and just said so, in fact it says something about people that enjoy this "sport" that there is a continual need to justify it as if they were doing the rest of society a great service.

 

No excuses from me only reasons or how about a quote from Graham Sirl ex Chief officer of the league against cruel sports, campaigner against hunting for 22 years and Burns inquiry team member "hunting offers a balance in the countryside"

 

Chris

 

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There is a difference between a balance in the countryside and putting a fox, perhaps not in tip top condition, but quite happy to go on living a little longer, "out of its misery".  Hunters will always try to find ways to justify their acts while others will stay by their firesides with a book, until the season is over and everyone is put out of their misery and able to live peacefully again.

Another Chris

 

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[quote user="Christine Animal"]

Hunters will always try to find ways to justify their acts while others will stay by their firesides with a book, until the season is over and everyone is put out of their misery and able to live peacefully again.

[/quote]

You see here we go again with a statment which both sides make with so much assumption. Who is this guy everyone who sits by his fire reading a book scared to go out because people are killing animals for sport? As I said, and believe me there are many more out there like me, I don't give a toss one way or the other and neither party would keep me locked up in my house during the season.

Thats the trouble with the hunting 'debate' both sides are absolutly right and believe they have the general public on their side en mass and the anti lobby even tell people that it is the democratic right to ban it because Labour were voted in and it was on thier manifesto. Honestly get a life, Labour did not get in power just because they banned hunting, that was a minor consideration compaired to the rest of their manifesto. And if anybody out there did vote for them solely for that reason they need their head examined. Still as that idiot Tony Banks said (I speak with authority about him as he was my MP) "It gets the torys back for closing the pits" when the bill was passed so it's easy to see where his true agenda lay.

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[quote user="crdale"]No excuses from me only reasons or how about a quote from Graham Sirl ex Chief officer of the league against cruel sports, campaigner against hunting for 22 years and Burns inquiry team member "hunting offers a balance in the countryside" [/quote]

As I thought, Graham Sirl was talking about hunting deer in the West Country, and frankly since he was in a position of  authority there, one must ask if he also had a hand in  the dreadful mismanagement of the Leagues sanctuaries? Was he really in a position to comment ?

'Having recently left the League Against Cruel Sports after nine years as head of West country operations, I now feel I should put forward my own views on deer hunting with hounds.

I have not changed my view that hunting with hounds is unnecessary and involves cruelty to the individual deer being hunted.

Remember that it took the RSPCA some years, but eventually they too backed the anti hunting stance. The whole hunting argument is flawed because the fox numbers are self regulatory (in the countryside) and most farmers do not consider them to be a major pest, in which case you are left with a group of people who hunt for the pleasure of the kill.

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Quillan, I didn't say everyone sits by his fire, I said "others", just an imaginary way of saying that there are others who live differently to the hunters, but in no way meaning they are locked up in their houses.  It just meant that we do not have to swallow the argument that hunters are doing nature and everyone else a good turn. 

I do not see what the Labour party has to do with it, we are in France.

 

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[quote user="Quillan"]You see here we go again with a statment which both sides make with so much assumption. Who is this guy everyone who sits by his fire reading a book scared to go out because people are killing animals for sport? [/quote]

And now you're exaggerating, Quillan!   Of course we're not all literally locked indoors when hunters are out and about!

But where's the pleasure in walking the dog through the woods and hearing shots all around you?   Where are they ****ers???!!!!    And what exactly ARE they hunting?   Round here, it's nothing but taking potshots at silly little birds that fly out of hedges, yet the hunters have got all the camo gear on and all the rest of it.   Anybody who's in the habit of romanticising France could easily be fooled into thinking that it's a noble, time-honoured tradition and all that claptrap, when in fact it's just boys and their toys.

It's obviously different in other parts of France.   And in fact, hey ho, I don't really care one way or the other.  [;)]

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I wont take the dogs out in the local forest during the

hunting season (they just get my fields/agility) – and even then on Sundays I

need to be careful in my own fields (incl. the ones that hunt is not allowed

in).

Forests are too dangerous with the various hunts going one

(plus some forms of hunter attitude to others using the forest).

I personally do not wish to become another statistic in the {Pheasants

26, Deer 14, Other people 3} leagues.

Ian

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"Remember that it took the RSPCA some years, but eventually they too backed the anti hunting stance."

 

Only after they had been targeted and taken over by the animal rights lobby in much the same way as the labour party was targeted by the militant tendancy in the late seventies early eighties

 

"The whole hunting argument is flawed because the fox numbers are self regulatory (in the countryside) and most farmers do not consider them to be a major pest, in which case you are left with a group of people who hunt for the pleasure of the kill."

 

As are all animal numbers everywhere if there is not enough food to support the population numbers fall if over population occurs disease becomes a problem and numbers fall and so on. If most farmers today do not consider the fox a major pest it probably has something to do with the fact that the proportion of them that keep livestock that is a potential victim of fox predation is allot lower than it used to be. Do you really think that everybody that hunts does so for the pleasure of the kill, because the vast majority of them would be utterly disappointed if that is the case as the followers rarely see a kill.

 

Chris

 

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That is a red herring ! Or are hunters so blood thirsty that it AS to be a live fox. Says a lot doesn't it?

The fact is that many of the arguments used by the pro hunters fly out the window if you retain drag hunting, you need hounds and horses for drag hunting, thus you retain the employment and the things like picking up carcasses from farmers etc.

Hunting is not necessary to control fox numbers and neither need a ban on hunting foxes put people out of work.

 

 

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Just look what this pair have gone and done.  Now why didn't they stay at home by the fire?

A sixty year old man died of suffocation on Sunday after going down a hole he had dug with a friend at Sains (35).  The two chasseurs had shot and wounded a fox who had escaped down his earth.  So they decided to catch it by digging a "suitable" hole which should have enabled them to reach the animal said the police of Saint-Malo.  But the earth caved in as one of the chasseurs tried to go down it.  All the rescuers could do upon arrival was dig out the body.

 

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[quote

user="crdale"]

As are all animal numbers everywhere if there is

not enough food to support the population numbers fall if over

population occurs disease becomes a problem and numbers fall and so on.

Chris

 

[/quote]

 

This is a massive over simplification as there are several

different mechanisms applying to population dynamics in biology.  There are basically two types of animal in

terms of population control “k-selectors” and “r-selectors”.  K-selection control their populations by

virtue of the “carrying capacity” of the environment whilst R-selectors

optimise on reproductive fate and “failure” of offspring.  The situation becomes more complex because

the reproductive rate is not linear with the number of individuals – but rather

“bouncy” (difficult to describe without drawing a picture”.  The reproductive rate vs the number of

individuals tends to have several “stable” points in terms of feedback.  Under normal circumstances animal

populations will remain at their  higher

“stable point”.  However, things can

happen (particularly when you get humans around) that can cause populations to

drop and, should they drop sufficiently then they can move to a lower stable

point from which it will be very difficult for the population to recover.  Typical examples as to techniques that can

cause such populations drop include “harvesting” using the wrong

techniques.  The classic example is

fishing quotas based on catches – which, given that the Fisheries Authorities

state that the quotas are set at the “maximum sustainable yield”, creates an

unstable equilibrium.  Were they to e.g.

license appropriately by e.g. gear (e.g. numbers of fishing boat days at sea)

they the equilibrium would be stable as, when populations decline, so do

catches and everything becomes self correcting.  With e.g. quotas at the maximum sustainable yield, catch one fish

above the quote and in theory (if the quota is set exactly as Maximum

sustainable yield) then the population will crash to the next lower stable

population equilibrium point (normally much much lower population numbers).

In situations where there is a need to start captive

breeding clearly something in the population dynamics of “harvesting” has gone

badly wrong.  Things like disease

outbreaks are “self-correcting” and thus are not the cause of the need to

captive breed (other than in the very short term).  This the most likely cause is the mismanagement of the fox

population by those who claim their interest and abilities are in “managing the

countryside”.  In practice I thing the evidence

points to them managing their own sport and nothing to do with managing the

countryside at all.

 

Ian

 

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"That is a red herring ! Or are hunters so blood thirsty that it AS to be a live fox. Says a lot doesn't it?"

 

Not a red herring at all but simply pointing out that you are telling people to take up a different sport.

 A sport that at first glance appear the same but when watched for a short while is quite obviously different.

As I pointed out in an earlier post most of the followers do not see a kill so would be dissappointed if they attended for blood thirsty reasons, in fact I have never seen a fox killed while I have been hunting despite tending to ride near the front, I have however seen a fox in a snare (dead) and found a fox that had been shot and wounded and got away and died of its wounds some days later and they are both experiances I would not care to repeat.

 

Chris 

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[quote user="Deimos"]

[quote user="crdale"]

As are all animal numbers everywhere if there is not enough food to support the population numbers fall if over population occurs disease becomes a problem and numbers fall and so on.

Chris

 

[/quote]

<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->

This is a massive over simplification as there are several different mechanisms applying to population dynamics in biology.  There are basically two types of animal in terms of population control “k-selectors” and “r-selectors”.  K-selection control their populations by virtue of the “carrying capacity” of the environment whilst R-selectors optimise on reproductive fate and “failure” of offspring.  The situation becomes more complex because the reproductive rate is not linear with the number of individuals – but rather “bouncy” (difficult to describe without drawing a picture”.  The reproductive rate vs the number of individuals tends to have several “stable” points in terms of feedback.  Under normal circumstances animal populations will remain at their  higher “stable point”.  However, things can happen (particularly when you get humans around) that can cause populations to drop and, should they drop sufficiently then they can move to a lower stable point from which it will be very difficult for the population to recover.  Typical examples as to techniques that can cause such populations drop include “harvesting” using the wrong techniques.  The classic example is fishing quotas based on catches – which, given that the Fisheries Authorities state that the quotas are set at the “maximum sustainable yield”, creates an unstable equilibrium.  Were they to e.g. license appropriately by e.g. gear (e.g. numbers of fishing boat days at sea) they the equilibrium would be stable as, when populations decline, so do catches and everything becomes self correcting.  With e.g. quotas at the maximum sustainable yield, catch one fish above the quote and in theory (if the quota is set exactly as Maximum sustainable yield) then the population will crash to the next lower stable population equilibrium point (normally much much lower population numbers).

In situations where there is a need to start captive breeding clearly something in the population dynamics of “harvesting” has gone badly wrong.  Things like disease outbreaks are “self-correcting” and thus are not the cause of the need to captive breed (other than in the very short term).  This the most likely cause is the mismanagement of the fox population by those who claim their interest and abilities are in “managing the countryside”.  In practice I thing the evidence points to them managing their own sport and nothing to do with managing the countryside at all.

<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->

Ian

<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->

[/quote]

Are you using a complicated way of saying that over hunting has wiped out the fox population?

 

Chris

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Well, Chris CR dale , I am glad that you are finally calling it a sport and have dropped the regulation or population control argument, much better when we all know where we stand. 

So, if that's the situation in the UK , what is the situation in France? No followers here, just participants.

Chris

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