QUESTION: Animal rights activists in Great Britain and America are seeking a ban on fox hunting. Should such a ban be made law?
JOSETTE SHINER: It is time to add fox hunters to the endangered species list. England's victorious Labor Party has vowed to vote for outlawing fox hunting in the House of Commons. A similar debate has lapped onto the shores of the New World, where lawmakers in California are considering a ban.Fox hunting is a sport profoundly enjoyed by those who participate. Hunt clubs are no longer the exclusive turf of the upper classes; many working people are members. Their joy is not in the death of the fox: it's in the excitement of the chase, the glory of the ride, the community of the hunt.
And what about the fox? In America, the fox is rarely, if ever, killed. In England, the foxes killed during the hunt are fewer in number than those killed by cars.
Fox-hunting is also a billion dollar industry supporting the lives and lifestyles of thousands of people, from the farriers who shoe the horses to the huntsmen who manage the hounds to the haberdashers and saddlers who equip the hunt. These are working class people with families to feed. Whose lives are really at risk?
The irony is that without the glamour of the hunt to give him prestige, a fox is considered vermin by farmers. Foxes, given their cruel propensity to kill other animals such as chickens, are usually subject to extermination through poisoning or by way of torturous metal traps. But in hunt country these furry red rascals are enshrined like royalty in paintings and statues, while their habitats are carefully preserved on thousands of acres of rolling countryside.
The bottom line is this: The hunting of animals offends the sensibilities of the chattering class, who like to pretend that the meat they eat originated in the Happy Mealbag from McDonald's rather than the slaughterhouse. It is so much more proper that way. And so we will make criminals of those who hunt for their meat and of children who chase foxes on scruffy ponies. One small step for false civility, one giant step for hypocrisy.
BONNIE ERBE: The end of man's inhumanity to animals would not be, as my colleague avers, one small step for false civility and a giant step for hypocrisy, but one large step for human grace and compassion. Not, of course, that merely banning the use of foxes in fox hunts would mean the end of man's inhumanity to animals. But it would bring us one small step closer.
Americans have taught our English cousins a thing or two. Fox hunting is simply one more such arena. They recently followed the American example of taking the power to set interest rates away from professional politicians and giving it to a central bank (in our case, the Federal Reserve). Similarly, it would cost them nothing and reward them greatly to follow the American trend in fox hunting: substituting fox scent for the use of live foxes.
Fox hunting is a colorful, bracing sport. Chasing barking hounds on horseback, and galloping through fields and over fences must be exhilarating, a natural high and a thrill for humans, horses and dogs alike. But there's no need to kill a poor fox in the process. Americans now consistently put the hounds on the trail of synthetic fox scent, instead of the trail of a real live fox. The American method is just as much fun and it lacks the barbarity of the English. The English even smear their faces with the dead fox's blood. What could be more ghastly?
Author Christopher Manes has a new book titled "Other Creations: Rediscovering the Spirituality of Animals." In it, he writes, "If animals matter in your life, you have a deeper view of creation. You're not the center of things. Other people matter, other things matter."
Some people will always have the desire to eat meat or to wear leather. But if we want to call ourselves enlightened, we should limit our killing of animals to truly necessary circumstances. Fox hunting is simply not in that category.