I am no friend of "fox penning" as I have noted before. This is not part of Virginia's fox hunting history, and I would just as soon see it gone. The Commonwealth has taken a giant step forward in the right direction with recently approved regulations by the state game department which will require that pens have rounded fence corners so fox cannot be cornered, a limit to the number of dogs allowed per acre, and a prohibition on cash prizes for competitions.
Virginia Sen. David W. Marsden who sponsored the legislation to ban new pens and to change the rules on the old ones, notes that while fox hunting has a long and respected tradition in Virginia, and Fox Hounds are the Virginia state dog, there is an important distinction between hunting and fox penning:
“Everyone makes the claim that this is part of our hunting tradition — you’d think that George Washington had an electrified pen.”
Bingo. Penning is not hunting and it is not part of our tradition -- it is the opposite of that.
So who are using these fenced and electrified fox pens?
Not the mounted hunts. The hounds of Northern Virginia in Fairfax and Middleburg learn their job the old-fashioned way -- in front of horses and running free over open fields with experienced dogs. Ditto for every hunt I know of in Maryland.
For the record, the current and former heads of the Master of Foxhounds Association and Foundation are also no friend of fox pens, and for the same reason I am opposed to them: if you do not stand up to lazy slop hunters engaged in "contests," then you jeopardize all hunting.
The only "contest" in a real hunt is between you and two million years of evolutionary adaptation. And believe me when I say that most days it's a fair fight and the extraordinary growth in American wildlife is a testament to that.
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