Hunting Ethics and Terriers

A repost from June 2005.

The hunting community has given a LOT of serious thought to ethical hunting and perhaps this is a topic over-due for discussion in the arena of working terriers.

As the folks at Boone and Crockett note:

"We live in a democracy where in the rules by which we live are determined by majority vote. For those who value hunting, it is fortunate that the majority of the population who do not hunt tolerate or accept hunting. If hunting is to survive to be practiced by future generations, we must preserve, enhance, and protect the image of hunting, hunters, and land stewards as a positive force in wildlife conservation."

Every person will come to their own place when it comes to ethical hunting. I do not like canned bird shoots, for example, while others may find nothing wrong with them. Each to his own.

I broach the topic of ethical hunting, not so we reach the same place, but so people will think about this topic a bit more. How do we represent our sport? How do we do right by the dogs and by the quarry?

As stewards for a type of hunting that is hundreds of years old, how do we make sure terrier work is passed down, intact, to the next generation?

There should always be respect for honest differences of opinion, of course, but opinion should be grounded in thought and information.

I am always amazed that so few people in the U.S. know the history of hunting and wildlife management in this country. A small start at education can be had by visiting the "Fair Chase" web site which notes that:

"As hunters and land managers, we are in the 'image business' - even more so now than at the turn of the century when 'fair chase' was proposed as the underlying foundation for hunter ethics. For sportsmen to continue to be the dominant force in setting wildlife resource policies we must, and foremost understand our role as conservationists. We should take pride in accomplishments and recognize, and assume the responsibilities that have been passed to us by our hunting forefathers. If we don't stand up for wildlife and its habitats, who will? We are, in the end, a 'band of brothers and sisters' in that what we do individually affects us all."

Standing up for wildlife and habitats is not something we hear much about in the terrier world for some reason. Perhaps knowledge of quarry and habitats is what is missing.

Perhaps it is what should be added.

I am always amazed to find hunters who have never taken the time to learn about the animals they hunt. For these people, terrier work is not a commune with nature, but a proxy for dog fighting or a paper certificate. A deer is nothing but a target and a trophy. A duck is just a feathered clay pigeon.

The true hunter knows the difference between a rat and a raccoon, a squirrel and a fox, a groundhog and a possum. They know what each animal eats, how often they breed, their population densities in various habitats, and their natural mortality rates.

A true hunter knows that you cannot hunt out all the rats on a dairy farm or shoot out all the squirrels in a 200-acre oak woods, but that you can knock all the raccoon or fox off a farm in a single weekend.

An ethical hunter does not bleed the land white.

A smart hunter thinks twice before dispatching a fox or a raccoon. Is it really necessary to terminate this animal? What harm is this animal really doing? If it is a nuisance animal for some reason, make dispatch swift and offer no apologies. But think it through. A released raccoon and fox can be hunted again. If the animal is not a true pest, and it otherwise unscathed, releasing it is more than good ethics -- it is also good hunting.

A lot of ethical hunting is just good manners -- close fences you open, don't trespass, fill holes you dig in the fields, park out of the way, don't rut the fields, and keep a low profile.

Ethical hunting is mostly about respect -- respect for the farm and the farmers, respect for the crops and the livestock, and even respect for people that do not hunt (waving a bloody shirt is no way to preserve hunting).

Respect extends to dogs and quarry. Respect for the dogs means that you work to reduce the incidence of injury to the animal. Once you get down to the quarry and it can be reached, you pull the terrier and do the job YOU are supposed to do, which is swift dispatch or quick release.

A seriously injured dog is not treated as a "red badge of courage" but as a failure of either the dog or the digger to work in a sustainable manner. Routine injury is not a sustainable way to hunt -- and the goal of the serious digger is to hunt next week, as well as this.

Respect for the quarry means you dispatch it as quickly and humanely as possible, and if pictures are taken for posterity, they are tasteful. Remember that killing the enemy is part of war, but displaying disrespectful pictures of the dead and wounded is a war crime. There is a lesson there, and the ethical hunter gets it.

An ethical hunter is the opposite of the slob hunter. The slob hunter drives his truck down the middle of the field and mows down the hedgerow. He leaves gates open and drives into the 7-Eleven with a bleeding doe in full view in the back of his pickup truck. The slob hunter does not know the difference between a gray fox and a red fox, and does not spend more than 30 minutes tracking his gut-shot deer.

Ethical hunters tend to be better hunters than slob hunters for the same reason that people who handicap themselves in golf tend to be better players than people who want a "gimme" at every hole.

I am happy to report that ethical hunting is on the ascendancy in the U.S. As wildlife has roared back from the edge of extinction and finding game has become easier, more and more people are affirming the hunting experience by turning to black powder and bow. When Colorado decided to ban hunting bear over bait (steel drums filled with jelly donuts and pizza), bear hunting increased because it was no longer seen as "slob shooting" but real hunting that required wood craft and skill.

Those that fish will understand. When we were five years old our fathers or grandfathers took us to a stocked trout pond and we were guaranteed a catch (paid per pound). A few years later we were mad fishermen killing everything we caught. As over-enthusiastic youth, we used live bait, tail-snagged fish during Spring runs, and bought packages of hooks with multiple barbs.

As we got better at fishing, most of us turned to catch-and-release and artificial lures. The best of us crushed the barbs off our hooks. We may have turned to fly fishing. No one bought a fish finder.

There is nothing wrong with killing -- it's part of hunting, but as we get older and better at wood-craft we realize that killing is not hunting in and of itself. We do not say a slaughterhouse worker is hunting, though we say a man who returns without a buck has been out hunting hard and "better luck tomorrow".

Those of us who love this land and the creatures on it recognize that hunting is a necessary part of game management and an important economic and political engine protecting America's wild places and farms. That said, we also need to recognize that just as it is important to protect the land and the streams, so too is it important to instill in the next generation a sense of hunting history and hunting ethics, and a sense of decorum when dealing with the non-hunting public.

It is sad, but true, that honorable minority communities are often scandalized and victimized by ugly and criminal elements within their midst. That is true for immigrant communities and racial minorities, but it also true for hunters.

It has been said that a minority community knows it has come of age when the worst acts of a few can no longer be used to characterize the larger whole. The good news is that we may be there with hunting in general. It remains to be seen as to whether we will get there with terrier work in particular.

Animal Rights Once Said Terriers Were Solution

A hungry fox patrols the edges of a duck pen.

From the BBC (2005)

Fox Hunting To Fore 45 years Ago

• A ban on using fox traps could have been lifted 45 years ago Scottish ministers considered ditching a ban on "extremely cruel" fox traps 45 years ago, it has emerged.

The countryside lobby complained to the Scottish Office in 1969 that attacks on lambs were soaring due to the ban on gin traps which have serrated jaws.

The devices were laid in the middle of pools and would shut and drag a fox into the water where it would drown.

National Archives of Scotland documents released on New Year's Day revealed the plans to listen to the landowners.

The government papers from 1971 showed then Scottish Secretary Gordon Campbell told lobbyists he would bear in mind their case.

But he told them he would have to balance their arguments carefully against those of other interests before taking any action.

However, ministers later told the Scottish Landowners Federation and the National Farmers Union (NFU) of Scotland they would not lift the ban because such a move would spark outcry from animal welfare groups.

Instead they advised landowners to use more "humane" methods of culling foxes such as hunting with dogs, shooting, snaring, poisoning or gassing.

Conservatives Win in the U.K

I am predicting the future again.

How do I do that?

There is a method, and it's simple enough: You go to "Intrade" and see how the betting folks are putting down their coin. This is how they count it on the eve of the election:

• Conservatives to win next UK General Election: 91.4


• Labour to win next UK General Election: 8.6


• Liberal Democrats to win next UK General Election: 2.5

Having played Intrade, I then go to look at RealClearPolitics to read the headlines:

• Labour Candidate Slams Gordon Brown as Worst PM in History


• Poll: Cameron Needs 14 Seats


• RCP Average: Conservatives +6.4

Then I head over to RealClearWorld where I find everyone has the conservatives winning the election, albeit narrowly.

Bottom line: Cameron will win, Gordon Brown will disappear into a monastery, and Clegg will become a popular gadfly who will be given the reins to moderate Cameron so that the widows and orphans in the U.K. will not be sold off to the cannibal islands to balance off the foreign trade losses.

In short, the world will trim its sails and carry on, moving forward, in a slightly different direction.
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British Conservationists Wear Red Coats

Two predators cast an eye on each other.

The Daily Telegraph reports on a new publication with a forward by Sir David Attenborough:

It has been called the "Domesday book of British wildlife" - a new publication, compiled by 40 of Britain's leading scientists, provides a complete picture of the state of the country's wild animals and plants.

The book, called Silent Summer, makes for some grim reading. Farmland birds, brown hares, water voles and many butterflies and other insects are in decline because of changing farming practices and loss of habitat, it says.

There are, however, some success stories. The otter, which between 1957 and the Seventies disappeared from 94 per cent of its habitats, is now back at more than a third of those sites, thanks to a special conservation programme.

... [C]ontroversially, the book credits field sports with helping to conserve several species, saying activities like hunting and shooting are "almost universally good" for the hunted species and many other species living in the same habitats.

The 600-page book was written by a team of experts and edited by Professor Emeritus Norman Maclean, of Southampton University's School of Biological Sciences, and a leading UK authority on fish genetics and genomics.

The book records how some farmland birds, including the skylark, have seen their population fall by more than half in recent decades. Farmland birds are a key government barometer for measuring the countryside's health.

.... The book highlights the importance of field sports to the wellbeing of wildlife. Robin Sharp, Chair Emeritus of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, says that "field sports ... have been almost universally good for the hunted species and the non-hunted, non-predators that thrive in the same habitat".

Prof Sharp praises foxhunting and reveals that 86 per cent of woodland managed for hunting had vegetation cover – important for other species – compared with just 64 per cent in unmanaged woodland.

Managed areas also had an average of four more plant species, greater plant diversity and more butterfly species than unmanaged areas.

Prof Sharp also reports on a study of three areas in central England which found that all owners of land used for hunting and shooting had planted new woodland, compared with only 30 per cent of landowners who did not host hunts or shoots.

"This suggests that those who hunt and/or shoot provide significant conservation benefits," he said.

Prof Sharp calls on hunters and shooters to make more effort to explain the benefits of their activities to conservationists, policy-makers and the public.

"Overwhelmingly the target species for field sports have fared well over the last century ... More game-keeping, game crops and habitat management would undoubtedly achieve even more."

4To order a copy.

• Related Post:
  ** Running with the Foxes
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Is the End of the Ban at Hand?

In American Working Terriers I detail how the rise of the Enclosure Movement of 18th and 19th Century Britain led to the rise of a wool-based sheep economy, which in turn led to the rise of mounted fox packs in the U.K., and the forcing of the rural poor off of the land and into the kind of squalor made famous in Dickens novels.

Class divisions exacerbated by the Enclosure Movement continue to boil just beneath the skin in Britain, fueling such diverse activities as pedigree dog shows and the RSPCA.

If one is looking for evidence of the pentimento of the Enclosure Movement, however, one could hardly do better than study the current platforms of the Labour and Conservative parties where, perversely, fox-hunting is a front-and-center debate.

As The Farmers Guardian notes:

A CONSERVATIVE Government would introduce a comprehensive package of measures to tackle TB in cattle and badgers and give MPs a free vote to repeal the fox hunting ban, it has been confirmed.

The Tory election manifesto, launched by David Cameron this morning (Tuesday, April 13), said bovine TB had led to the slaughter of over 250,000 cattle since 1997.

In what is seen as a key point of difference with the Labour Party it pledged to tackle the disease which it described as ‘the most pressing animal health problem in the UK’ through ‘a carefully-managed and science-led policy of badger control’.

“While vaccination is an important part of the long-term solution we cannot afford to wait until 2014 when this may be available.

“A carefully managed and science-led policy of badger control in areas of high and persistent levels of TB in cattle is necessary to eradicate this disease,” Jim Paice, Shadow Farm Minister told Farmers Guardian.

In another controversial move, the Conservative manifesto also promised to give Parliament the opportunity to repeal the Hunting Act on a free vote.

“The Hunting Act has proved unworkable,” it says.

The Conservative’s overall manifesto message to farmers and voters was to promote ‘a sustainable and productive’ agriculture.

Right.

Here is a perfect case of both sides starting with their conclusions and carefully crafting their rationales around them.

One side acts as if the badger is an endangered animal rather than a creature more common than the fox in the British countryside.

The other side acts as if badgers are a major threat to farm economies, and never mind if they have been present in the U.K. longer than either man or cow!

But set aside badgers . . . What about fox hunting?

The one uncontested truth here is that "the Ban" on fox hunting is universally seen as having been a complete and total flop.

Not only did it NOT slow down the mounted hunts in the slightest (they are more popular than ever), but it did not save a single fox life, as vehicle impact, snares, disease, and guns have served as alternative methods off trimming off Mother Nature's excess.

What the Ban did do, however, was undermine the rule of law.

Not only was the Ban widely flouted, but the police could not be bothered to enforce it, as the law was so poorly crafted that getting a conviction was nearly impossible, and even when achieved, was never popular.

The good news for common sense and the rule of law is that the Ban on fox hunting with dogs may not survive the Spring. As The Independent notes:

The Conservative lead over Labour widened yet further in the week that the date of the general election was finally announced. As a result, the party now appears tantalisingly close to an overall majority, but is still somewhat short of what it needs to be confident of outright victory on 6 May.

Our latest poll of polls, based on no less than 13 national polls conducted during the course of last week, now puts the Conservatives on 39 per cent, up one point on the previous week. That means David Cameron's party is now nine points ahead of Labour, whose average vote, at 30 percent, is unchanged.

Of course even a Conservative win will not end the debate, if for no other reason than the debate about fox hunting has never been about fox!

The issues here are deeper than that.

These are ancient land and class grievances passed down from one generation to another, for 200 years. Only the naive would imagine they will not be fanned, fed and nurtured into the future.
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David Cameron on the Ban

David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition in the United Kingdom, has suggested he will vote to repeal the Ban:

"My own view is the hunting ban is a bad piece of legislation, it hasn't worked, it has made a mockery of the law, a lot of time was wasted on it, and I think we would be better off without it. That gives you a clue to how I will vote."

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Veterinarians Call for End to "the Ban"

Fox populations are exploding in the U.K. and the issue of control is moot. The only question now is whether it will be through vehicle impact, starvation, disease, poison, shooting, snares, or a return to hunting with hounds.


A bipartian Parliamentary group in the UK, working with the Veterinary Association for Wildlife Management, has issued a new report [PDF] which concludes that hunting with dogs is the most effective way of controlling foxes, and that all arguments of cruelty are "invalid" as predation by larger canids has been the way of the fox since before man walked the earth.

The publication goes on to to note that hunting with hounds is "demonstrably the natural and most humane method of control," and there was "never any scientific evidence" to support a ban.

The all-party parliamentary Middle Way Group worked with the Veterinary Association for Wildlife Management (500 veterinarians across the U.K.) to produce the document, which concludes that the hunting ban of 2004 is "unscientific, unenforceable, socially divisive, and harms, rather than improves, animal welfare," and called for the ban to be repealed.

Alison Hawes, regional director of the Countryside Alliance, said the findings were another step towards the repeal of the ban which the organisation has been campaigning for: "We are now looking at the probability of a repeal, rather than the possibility. The ball is really rolling in that direction."

David Cameron has already pledged the Conservatives will hold a free vote on the issue in Parliament if they come to power in an election likely to be held next year.

Trapping is not an option for fox control in the U.K., as it is in the U.S., because the use of traps was banned in the 1950s. Ironically, the ban on traps was supported by the mounted hunts who thought it would strengthen their hand as the "preferred" method of fox control. >> To read more >> To read the press release [.doc]


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Ireland's Sinn Féin Joins the Animal Rights Loons?

From the Countryside Alliance Ireland:

Sinn Féin passed a motion at the recent Ard Fheis calling on the party to Ban all Blood Sports including Fox Hunting and Hare Coursing. This motion was opposed by a large number of delegates. This stance has now been adopted is now party policy.

Also on the Countyside Alliance Ireland web site:

A meeting took place between Mr. Lyall Plant, Chief Executive, Countryside Alliance Ireland, Mr. D.J. Histon, Chief Executive/ Secretary, ICC, and Mr. Martin Ferris, Sinn Fein at Leinster House on Thursday, May 21.

The following update was issued by Sinn Fein:

A motion passed at the Sinn Féin Ard Fhéis in February regarding the banning of hare coursing and hunting has caused considerable upset, not least among Sinn Féin members and supporters who are involved in the sport or who appreciate the tradition behind these sports and its place in rural communities the length and breadth of the country.

Apart from the tradition and the history associated with these sports, including my own part of North Kerry, I am also conscious of the conservation role played by hunts and coursing clubs and the contribution generated by both of these country sports in economic terms to the rural economy. There are thousands of people directly involved in the greyhound and equine industry as trainers and owners, not to mention the large crowds who attend events on an annual basis and the economic multiplier effect all of that has in terms of generating spending within the economy. It is for this reason that I pointed out in a report which was recently passed by the Oireachtas Agriculture Committee, that strongly rooted indigenous rural industries are maintained and developed.

The motion itself was tabled by a Dublin city cumann and was narrowly passed during a poorly attended section of the Ard Fhéis. Unfortunately I myself, who was to speak in opposition to the motion, was detained by a radio interview at the time and the two cumainn which had tabled motions supporting our previous position on hunting and coursing failed to provide speakers. That was a clear shortfall on our part.

Had there been a proper debate, and had coursing and hunt supporters had the opportunity to put forward the facts regarding their recognised activity, and to counter the misconceptions many people have about them, I have no doubt that the motion would have been defeated.

As things stand, however, I am bound by the motion but I am certain many cumainn around the country, will ensure that it is challenged at next year’s Ard Fhéis and that it will be defeated. The only assurance I can give in the meantime is that Sinn Féin will be part of no legislative effort to ban hunting and coursing either in the 26 or the 6 counties.

. . . . - Martin Ferris

Sadly, I more-or-less predicted things would go this way. It is an ancient axiom, but a true one none-the-less: If you lie down with dogs, you may get up with fleas.

The problem in Ireland is the same problem as existed in the UK before "the ban"-- there is no web site which affirmatively and positively defines ethical hunting with dogs while clearly fencing out the unethical, the illegal, the immoral, and the criminal. And no, the distinctions are not subtle!

Silence about bad behavior does no one any favors.

You have to define what you are, and what you are not, before the other side does.

You have to model ethical behavior and disavow those who engage in unethical behavior.

Of course, there will always be unethical young fools who will say "we are all in this together."

Nonsense! Ethical terrierwork has nothing to do with barbarism or savagery any more than God-fearing Muslims have anything to do with bomb-throwing terrorists, or skeet shooters have anything to do with beltway snipers.

But if you are silent or timid in the face of barbarism, who is to know that?

If you allow anonymous bulletin boards to be colonized by kids and kooks, and are not willing to reign in the "free speech" claims of the crazy and stupid, well just see what you get.

Is it too late for the Irish to define themselves and turn the tide?

I do not think so. But the tide is running fast and the time is getting short. What is needed now is not the followship of the group, but the leadership of an individual who will suit up and show up to create a solid and positive web site devoted to hunting with dogs in Ireland.

Who will stand up to do that?
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Animal Rights Loon Formally Charged With Murder

One of the animal rights lunatics that was harassing a legal fox hunt in the U.K. with a gyrocopter, crashed his air vehicle, killing and nearly decapitated hunt supporter Trevor Morse (pictured at right with hounds).

The man, Bryan Griffiths, age 54, has been formally charged with murder. Griffiths is a rabid anti-hunt campaigner and works as a heating technician in Bedworth in Warwickshire.

I do not think Mr. Griffiths will be able to get off from this charge; the incident was filmed on a video camera by an eyewitness.

A second man has been released on bail while further inquiries are carried out. Murder charges may yet be filed against this second individual.
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Animal Rights Loons Arrested for Murder

Two animals rights lunatics have been arrested for murder in the UK after a gyrocopter they were using to follow one of the mounted hunts struck and killed a hunt supporter, nearly decapitating him. Notes the London Times:

Protect Our Wild Animals, has been monitoring the Warwickshire and the Heythrop hunts from a gyrocopter over the past three weeks. Masters of the hunt told The Times that one of the low-flying aircraft had been reported to the Civil Aviation Authority and the police about ten days ago, amid fears that it was upsetting animals. It was said to have been swooping in an aggressive manner over the hunt.

In the United States, inteference with hunting is a crime and is prosecutable. It seems to me that's a law the British need to embrace.

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The Working Terrier Federation Now on the Web

Barrie Wade, Chairman of the National Working Terrier Federation, writes to say that to mark its 25th year the NWTF has at long last set up its own website (they were too busy fighting the Hunting Act before). Hopefully some of the content may assist others faced with similar battles at some time in the future.

The site can be found at www.terrierwork.com.

I have added it to the blog roll, at right, just below the JRTCA. Nice job Barrie!
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The Begginning of the End for the Ban?

A major legal ruling in the U.K. has started to put right what was put wrong by the Hunting Act (aka "the ban").

Though the ban on mounted fox hunting was never really a ban (there were many loopholes and terrier work is still very much legal), it was a serious miscarriage of the law in that it seemed to suggest that people would be considered guilty unless they could prove themselves innocent -- a topsy-turvy view of the law and the kind of thing that warmed the heart of nascent fascists.

Now a High Court has ruled that merely searching for a wild mammal with dogs is not illegal, and that it is up to the prosecution to prove defendants are not covered by exemptions to the ban - rather than defendants having to show they are exempt.

Tim Bonner, of the Countryside Alliance, has called the High Court outcome 'very positive' and said: 'We have won on everything essentially. This should mean the prospect of Hunting Act offences being prosecuted will be far lower. We would expect there to have to be overwhelming evidence for a prosecution even to be launched.'
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Modern Scientific Trapping

In Management by Majority Ted Williams writes in Audubon magazine that:

"When legholds are used by people who know and care about what they're doing, the animals rarely suffer serious injury.

The wolves now thriving in Yellowstone National Park, for example, are routinely caught with leghold traps so they can be outfitted with radio collars.

More than 2,000 river otters have been caught in legholds in the South and released virtually unscathed in midwestern states where the species had been extirpated. Of 14 otters captured last year by graduate student Tasha Belfiore of the University of California, Davis, none suffered more than a slight bruise or abrasion. Belfiore had spent three years designing the study, which was to have assessed genetic damage to otters from pesticides used in the Sacramento Valley. Her study might have helped preserve otters and other species, but because of the trap ban she has had to abandon it. 'If all the facts are out on the table and we still disagree, that's fine,' she told me. 'But to be making a decision based on misinformation isn't fair.'"
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Glad to Be an American

I don't normally rip off other bloggers (especially professional ones), but sometimes, their posts are so good that I really think they need to be read by more people.

A good example is the post embedded below from the "Field Notes" blog at Field and Stream, which is in my Google Reader (and maybe should be in yours too):

Populist Poachers?

For years American hunters have held up Great Britain as an example of what our future might be if hunting traditions continue to die and our political power wanes. I've never really bought into that argument because of fundamental differences in the two nations' hunting traditions and wildlife management models, differences that can be summed up thusly: they have the King's deer, we have the people's deer. Class and title have for centuries shaped the English hunting tradition. And while it makes for a cracking good time if you're part of the landed gentry, it's not such a good way to perpetuate the sport when all those peasants you've been repressing for centuries suddenly have a vote and a grudge. Hunting? That's a cruel, antiquated upper-class tradition. Ban it.

But it seems that hunting is making something of a comeback in Merry Olde England. At least the kind of hunting that not that long ago could get your neck stretched if you were caught doing it.

From the story:

Once, the poacher was a man with big pockets in his raincoat sneaking on to an aristocrat's land to steal game for his family pot. Now he is likely to be part of a gang from town, in it for hard cash, rampaging through the countryside with guns, crossbows or snares.

Police in rural areas across Britain are reporting a dramatic increase in poaching, as the rise in food prices and the reality of recession increases the temptation to deal in stolen venison, salmon, or rarer meat and fish.

Organised and sometimes armed gangs of poachers are accused of behaving dangerously, intimidating residents, causing damage to crops or to gates and fences. Squads have also been out in the countryside "lamping", poachers using lights to transfix animals.


Here's the question that popped into my mind when I read this story: Is a poacher just a damn criminal wherever he happens to be or is there a certain level of poetic justice in the resurgence of poaching in Great Britain, sort of a populist backlash for not democratizing the sport as it was in the United States? Is it worse to steal game that belongs to a person or game that belongs to everyone? The stark contrast between those models was driven home to me this summer as I walked through the Great Hall at Hampton Court Palace during a trip to England. Henry VIII was by all accounts a fanatical hunter, and as I walked through the palace I gazed in awe at the dozens of magnificent stags lining the walls. I thought to myself "I could hang with 'ol Henry, he was my kind of guy." Except of course, that he wasn't. He was part of the nobility, while I and my ancestors have always been thick-ankled dull-witted peasants. And had I been caught hunting one of those stags on the wall I would have been summarily executed.

As romantic and classy as the English hunting tradition is, seeing those ancient mounts made me glad I was an American. Our hunting traditions may be dying, but at least we have them to try and save.

Anyone interested in the history of hunting in the UK, and how it got variously entangled with the enclosure movement, population growth, Malthus, Darwin, the Kennel Club, animal right, Francis Galton, genetic defect, and the hunting ban should pick up a copy of American Working Terrier in which that story is told in Chapter I.

Chapter II is the American version of the story, which is both quite a bit different and very much the same!

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Too Many Fox in Scotland is Good for Wisconsin

Red grouse, Scotland.

Forbes magazine reports on the "Grouse Crisis" in Scotland:

Park Falls, Wisconsin may be short on single malts, tweeds and pip-pipping. But it's got something grouse hunters in the U.K. could use more of: Birds.

When the heather blooms on the Scottish moors, tweedy gentlemen with bespoke shotguns take to blasting grouse. The sport usually brings $30 million a year to the Scottish economy, according to Glasgow's University of Strathclyde. Recent years, though, have been disappointing.

In 2006 and 2007 heavy rainfall damaged nests. Surviving young fell prey to an outbreak of ticks and to predation by an uncontrolled fox population, fox hunting having fallen into disrepute. This caused sherry-sipping lords to despair that the flush days of the sport might be coming to an end. The 2008 season, which opened Aug. 12 and will conclude in mid-December, has been an improvement, owing to the use of medicated grit to treat parasites and caged watering areas to protect birds from predators. "I should say mixed is a way of putting it," says Edward Hay, director of the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust. Some moors in North Yorkshire did well, but grouse in parts of Scotland were "virtually nonexistent." Since 1985 tick infestations have gone from 4% of chicks to 92%--not a good sign for the future.

Yet 4,000 miles away and a three-and-a-half-hour drive from Minneapolis lies the Shangri-la of grouse. Fat and happy birds by the tens of thousands are tapping their toes, just waiting to be shot. The lake-abutting mill town of Park Falls, Wis. bills itself as the Ruffed Grouse Capital of the World. Ruffed grouse, named for the iridescent black feathers on their napes, are cousin to the red grouse of the U.K. Like their cousins they spend most of their life on the ground (grubbing for clover, berries and bugs) and fly only to avoid enemies.

Hunters call them "winged dynamite" for their explosive speed and sound. They're the fastest game bird in North America. Whereas most game birds take off like a helicopter -- flying straight up at first, then horizontally--ruffed grouse move like a jet plane with a busted rudder. They take off at an acute angle, sputtering loudly and fishtailing.

Wisconsin being shy on moors, the birds' habitats are groves of aspen, pine and maple. That complicates things: Not only does a hunter have to lead his target, he also has to avoid hitting branches and trunks of trees as he turns to fire. Scottish hunters can use shotguns with 32-inch barrels, which provide accuracy at the cost of weight and snap movement. Wisconsin hunters need light, agile shotguns that can be carried all day through thick woods and maneuvered quickly in tight spots.

Sharp-tailed grouse, John James Audubon print, 1837
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A Short History of Dog Training

People tend to think the way things are done now is how they were done forever. Not entirely so, especially in the arena of dog training.

A few key dates in the history of canine communication show that while operant conditioning is pretty old stuff, the mix of methods has changed and become better understood over time:

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1700s: Truffle hunters learn to give their dogs bread when they locate truffles, which turns out to be cheaper than using pigs which cannot be stopped from eating all the truffles they locate.

1885: S.T. Hammond, a writer for Forest and Stream magazine advocates in his columns and in a book entitled Practical Training, that dogs should be praised and rewarded with meat when they do something right.

1880s: Montague Stevens trains his New Mexico bear dogs by rewarding them with pieces of bread instead of beating and kicking them as others of that era were generally doing. Stevens is a famous bear hunter and friend of Teddy Roosevelt and the sculptor Frederic Remington.

1886: Edward Thorndike develops a theory of learning based on stimulus and response. Thorndike shows that "practice makes perfect" and that if reinforced with positive rewards, animals can learn quickly.

1899: The first canine school for police dogs is started in Ghent, Belgium using Belgian Shepherds, which had recently been established as a breed.

1903: Ivan Pavlov publishes his experiments with dogs and digestion, noting that animals can be trained to have a physical response to stimuli. Pavlov called this learning process "conditioning," and in 1904 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for his research.

1903: The Germans begin schutzhund work, a competition devoted to obedience, protection, tracking and attack work.

1907: Police begin patrolling New York City and South Orange, New Jersey with Belgian Shepherds and newly reconstructed Irish wolfhounds.

1915: Baltimore police begin using Airedales from England to patrol the streets. The police suspend use of Airedales in 1917 as the dogs had helped make no arrests. The police failed to notice that no robberies had occurred where the dogs were on patrol.

1915: Edwin Richardson trains dogs for the military during WWI using some positive reinforcement, and the dogs prove to be quick studies. Many dogs are used for communication and for guard duty.

1917: The Germans begin to formally use dogs to guide soliders blinded in mustard gas attacks. The French soon follow suit.

1918: U.S. Army Corporal Lee Duncans find an abandoned war dog station in Lorraine, France which has five young puppies in a kennel. Duncan takes one of the pups and names it "Rin Tin Tin" after the finger dolls that French children were giving to the soldiers at the time. The dog travels to California, proves easily trainable, and is soon employed making movies that are so successful it saves Warner Brothers studio from bankruptcy. The dog dies in 1932 in neighbor Jean Harlowe's arms, and is buried in Paris, but its descendents work in the movies throughout the 1950s, inspiring many people to try to train their own dogs to do simple tricks.

1925: One of the very first German-trained guide dogs for the blind is given to Helen Keller.

1926: Propelled in large part by the popularity of Rin Tin Tin, the German Shepherd population in the U.S. explodes, and by 1926 it accounts for 36 percent of all the dogs in the AKC -- 21,659 animals. Due to rapid inbreeding and poor selection, however, the American German shepherd quickly degenerates and is soon deemed inferior.

1929: Dorothy Harrison Eustis establishes the Seeing Eye Foundation to train guide dogs for the blind. Eustis goes to Switzerland to get a better stock of German Shepherds than she can find in America. This same year the AKC tries to ban the importation of foreign purebred dogs in order to protect domestic dog breeders, but the plan fails.

1930: About 400 dogs are employed as actors in Hollywood, the majority of them mongrel terriers which prove to be small enough for indoor scenes, rugged enough for outdoor scenes, and exceedingly smart.

1938: B.F. Skinner begins research into operant conditioning as a scientifically-based learning model for animals and humans. His special focus is on teaching pigeons.

1939: The AKC begins obedience competitions designed by Helen Whitehouse Walker who wants to prove that her standard poodles can do something other than eat food.

1942: The U.S. military says it needs 125,000 dogs for the war, and asks people to donate their large breeds. The military manages to train only 19,000 dogs between 1942 and 1945. The Germans reportedly had 200,000 dogs in service.

1943: In 1943, Marion Breland and her husband Keller Breland form a company called Animal Behavior Enterprises (ABE) to teach animals for shows. The Brelands had been students of B.F. Skinner (see 1938) and began teaching animals to peform tricks for shows and for commercial clients such as dog-food maker General Mills. They pioneer the use of a "clicker" to teach animals at a distance and to improve timing for affirmations and delayed rewards. The Brelands were the first people in the world to train dolphins and birds using operant conditioning.

1943: The movie "Lassie Comes Home" is filmed, featuring a purebred male collie playing the female staring role. Ironically, the U.S. military considered purebred (i.e., AKC ) collies so stupid that they were specifically excluded from military service in World War II, while herding farm collies were actively recruited.

1947: The Brelands (see 1943) begin using chickens as learning subjects with which to train other trainers, as they are cheap, readily available, and "you can't choke a chicken."

1953: Austrian animal behaviorist Konrad Lorenz writes "Man Bites Dog" and "King Solomon's Ring," books which popularize animal behaviorism.

1954: Baltimore reestablishes its police dog program, and today it remains the oldest police K-9 program in the country.

1960s: During the early part of the 1960s, Marian and Keller Breland (see 1943) were hired by the U.S. Navy to teach other animal trainers how to train dolphins. The Navy was interested in using dolphins to patrol harbors, retrieve lost gear, and guide bombs (i.e. "suicide bomber" dolphins). During their work with the Navy, the Breland's meet Bob Bailey, the Navy's first director of animal training, and they began a partnership with him. Keller Breland dies in 1965, and in 1976 Marian and Bob Bailey are married.

1962: William Koehler publishes "The Koehler Method of Dog Training" which becomes a staple of AKC obedience competitors. Though often criticized today, Koehler's methods are the core of a lot of effective dog training systems still in use.

1970s: The U.S. Customs Service begins to use dogs to detect drugs, and they are subsequently employed to sniff out explosives and fire-starting chemicals.

1978: Barbara Woodhouse publishes "No Bad Dogs" one of the first popular books on basic dog training. It relies heavily on proper use of a choke chain, and says most "bad dogs" have inexperienced owners who are not training their dogs properly by being consistent, firm and clear.

1984: The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture begins to use beagles to patrol airports for contraband food and other perishable items.

1985: Dolphin trainer Karen Pryor publishes Don't Shoot the Dog: the New Art of Teaching and Training which focuses on timing, positive reinforcements and shaping behavior, and draws heavily on the work of Marian Breland Bailey and Robert Bailey (see 1943 and 1960s). Her book promotes "clicker training" of dogs to improve timing and to allow trainers to communicate and "reward" their dogs from a distance.

1995: The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture begins using Jack Russell Terriers to locate and kill invasive brown tree snakes on the island of Guam.

2000 and beyond: Various cable television shows feature various dog training and rehabilitation methods. The notion that there are "new" and "old" dog training methods obscures the fact that ALL dog training methods involve some form of operant conditioning which is, in fact, pretty old stuff (as old as dogs). None of the dog training shows actually explain the core principles of operant conditioning or their relative worth in different training situations.
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Darwin Approved, and As Natural As It Gets

Hunting with hounds 'mimics nature'

By Charles Clover, Environment Editor,
Telegraph (U.K.) 1/17/2008

Hunting with hounds is more "natural" than shooting or snaring as it mimics the way wolves work in the wild, according to a study by vets.

It is the healthiest form of predator control for populations of prey species, such as foxes and deer, because hounds, like wolves, use scent to select the weakest and easiest to catch, the study says.

Snaring, shooting and trapping, on the other hand, interfere with evolution and make prey species, such as the fox, more vulnerable to the spread of disease, according to the study which is based on scientific literature mostly published since the Burns Inquiry into hunting in June 2000.

The study by the Middle Way Group of MPs and peers and the Veterinary Association for Wildlife Management was intended to provide new arguments for a repeal of the Hunting Act on the grounds of animal welfare and wildlife management.

"The Natural Chase," a report by Katie Colvile, a vet, which is based on peer reviewed scientific literature, argues that rather than being cruel, hunting mimics natural processes that animals have evolved to cope with, whereas "artificial" forms of control undermine wildlife populations.

James Barrington, a consultant to the Middle Way Group, said: "The perception is that hunting is something that is a barbaric activity, that is cruel to the individual animal.

"This study shows that hunting, on the contrary, is selective, something that the quarry can cope with and that humans are almost insignificant in it.

"Hunting is nature's way of taking out the old, the sick and those with high parasite burdens - which mankind's forms of control do not. In framing the Hunting Act, the Government has produced a law that is in many ways unnatural."

The Middle Way Group, which is in favour of hunting under a statutory code to protect the welfare of the hunted animal, believes that a future Tory government would need positive arguments for the abolition of the Hunting Act if it came to power and the report was commissioned to fill that gap.

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Unintended Consequences: It's the Law!

From today's Yorkshire Post comes this article by Bill Carmichael:

"THE law of unintended consequences is the curse of well-meaning lawmakers around the globe.

You set out with high ideals of achieving some lofty goal – and end up doing precisely the opposite.

So it is with the banning of hunting with dogs. Almost three years after the ban was imposed in 2005, the sport of fox hunting has never been healthier.

This Boxing Day more than 250,000 hunt supporters gathered at over 300 meets around the UK – the numbers apparently swollen by people who previously had no interest in hunting, but who now turn out in protest at what they see as an illiberal and nanny-statist law.

So those people who set out to destroy fox hunting have succeeded only in invigorating it. Those who wanted to save foxes from the hounds have engineered a situation where more of them are killed than ever before.

You'd need a heart of stone not to laugh."

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Land of the Free

Warenton, Virginia Fox hounds and riders.


The piece below has been vandalized by the title writer. "Tally Ho Dude?" No one outside of the California surfer community, circa 1990, uses terms like "dude". That said, and with one other small caveat, it is a nice piece.

The other caveat has to do with the power of the animal rights movement in the U.S. The notion that the Humane Society of the the U.S. or PETA could put a stop to hunting of any kind is laughable.

Virginia has an expressed constitutional right to hunt, spends money encouraging more people to hunt, and keeps expanding the hunt season (and the limits) for deer and many other species.

PETA may be headquartered in Virginia, but those over-reaching gas bags don't make a peep in this state. They may be able to push around Kentucky Fried Chicken, but ESPN runs hunting shows every day, every magazine rack in American has hook-and-bullet publications on it, and the conservation community values hunters and anglers above all others.

In the state of Virginia we shoot well over 200,000 deer a year, and more than a 1,000 bear. Last year trappers took 35,000 red and gray fox and another 85,000 raccoon, and the population of everyything is on the rise. In fact nuisance widlife is such an issue in most of the U.S. that it is now illegal to move a beaver -- you are required to kill it rather than move it in most states. In Virginia the state pays a bounty in oder to encourage people to kill coyote (numbers are on the rise anyway), and there is talk of requiring hunters to shoot a doe in order to be able to be get a permit to shoot a buck; a kind of population-control-through-hunting that was unimaginable only 40 years ago.

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Sunday Times of London, December 26, 2004

Tally ho, dude! The hunt rides to America
by : Jonathan Green

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A foxhunters' exodus is under way from Britain to the land of the free
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Tomorrow morning Dennis Downing, splendid in his scarlet coat, will be up early to oversee the hounds -particularly his old favourites Gossip and Gorgeous. About 70 people will join the meet, including his wife Sue and 19-year-old daughter Emma, and a further 30 will come to see off the hunt, armed with the customary offering of port.

The Boxing Day meet, the biggest on the hunt calendar, is being held a day late as it has fallen on a Sunday, but otherwise everything will be done in accordance with the hunt's long tradition, which stretches back to 1888.

It could be the scene in any British village. The difference is that Downing left England in 1998 and now works for the Blue Ridge hunt in Virginia, 50 miles west of Washington DC.

Instead of the patchwork of Worcestershire fields he surveyed as master of the Croome hunt, he now rides through the spectacular Shenandoah valley with the Blue Ridge mountains in the background. His companions will be airline pilots, lawyers and doctors rather than the working farmers in England he once hunted with.

The decision by the government to ban hunting with dogs -which was set to come into force on February 18 -means that Downing, 50, has made a move that many of those who rely on hunting for a living are considering emulating. There still may be a temporary reprieve -the announcement last week that the attorney-general will not fight any application for an injunction against the ban from the Countryside Alliance means that hunting is likely to continue for several months yet.

But the uncertainty means Ireland, other European countries and America are becoming increasingly attractive as a new home for huntsmen and women. First choice for many is America, because the two communities have long hunted with each other.

When an advertisement for a whipper-in at the Blue Ridge hunt was placed in Horse & Hound recently, the hunt received 44 applications. Of those, two were from Americans, five from Ireland and the other 37 from British hunt staff.

"When we advertised a similar post four years ago we only got two people applying from England," says Linda Armbrust, the master of the Blue Ridge hunt. "It's incredible."

So Downing, it seems, was merely ahead of the pack when his family left Britain.

The strain caused by his job had become too much: the taunts Emma, then 12, endured; the ostracism Downing experienced; the industrial developments that made it increasingly difficult to keep hounds off building sites, busy roads and railway tracks.

"I thought, 'Stuff this'," says Downing and he started to scour job advertisements. In May 1998 the family --including foxhounds Glider (since deceased), Gossip and Gorgeous -- packed up and moved to Huntsville, Alabama, where Downing had been appointed master of foxhounds.

"Suddenly we were somewhere where you could ride hard for 25 miles and not see a single car," says Downing. "And our standard of living shot up -for the first time in my life I lived in a centrally heated house. It was difficult being in the Deep South -- at first no one could understand what I said and I couldn't understand them but the people were so warm and welcoming." They moved to the Virginia hunt a couple of years later.

Indeed, foxhunting has a long and rich history in America. Foxhounds were first imported in 1650 by British colonists and the first organised hunt was held in 1747 by Lord Fairfax, an English landowner, who introduced George Washington to the joys of hunting.

Currently there are foxhound hunts in 35 states -hunting over vastly different terrains and for different quarries. In the pinewoods of Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee they hunt red and grey foxes and coyotes. In New England the deciduous growth is good cover for the red fox, as is the landscape in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Delaware. On the Great Plains of the Midwest and the Rocky Mountains in California, coyotes are the main quarry.

However, there is one very distinct difference between the American and English form of hunting. American hunts will chase a fox but not kill it when it goes to ground. "We don't have the same problems with foxes as you do in the UK so they are not vermin here," says Joseph T Murtagh, of the Rose Tree Fox Hunting Club in Brogue, Pennsylvania, the oldest hunt in America. "We chase them and when they go to ground we account for them and they live to fight another day. In fact, I don't think our hounds even know how to kill a fox."

The one thing that Downing does miss is the atmosphere he remembers surrounding a British hunt, despite the protesters. "It used to be exceptional. I remember 1997, my last Boxing Day in England. When we met in the centre of Pershore in Worcestershire we were surrounded by hundreds of people cheering us, lining the streets. You'd also get loads of people following the hunt in their cars. That's just not something that happens in the United States."

It was that atmosphere that had attracted Armbrust to leave America in 1980 and act as master of two British hunts -the Mendip Farmers and then the High Peak Harriers. "Here in the US if you are arranging a meet you just call everyone up on the phone," she says. "In England I would drive around from farm to farm, talk to them and get to know them -their children, who'd died, who'd got married. I really enjoyed it.

"For people in England hunting is a way of life -it's very different to that in America. I had friends in England that once the cubbing season started their whole social life revolved around it. Here in the US if you are hunting you might go shopping in the morning, then perhaps go hunting for three to four hours and then go off for a game of tennis or golf afterwards."

Armbrust spent more than a decade happily here but increasingly she felt public opinion was turning against hunting. "When John Major won in 1992 I went out to buy a second-hand horse lorry to celebrate because I knew hunting would be around for at least another five years," she recalls. "But by 1995 I realised that it was not going to survive much longer."

She decided to go back to the US, partly for personal reasons but also because she was weary of the protests. "It wasn't fun being in boots and breeches and having people spit on you at the local garage while calling you 'fox killer'. And it wasn't fun either having 50 or 60 people in black balaclavas using filthy language in front of your children. But you know what we say in the US? 'What the hell!'"

So she returned to Virginia in 1995.

She and other members of the American foxhunting set are concerned that the British move could encourage similar calls in the US, led by the Humane Society of the United States. "The entire animal rights movement in the United States reacted with unfettered glee at the ban in England," says Wayne Pacelle, its chief executive. "We view this act of parliament as one of the most important actions in the history of the animal rights movement. This will energise our efforts to stop hunting with hounds."

"I am sickened and disgusted by what they have done in the UK," retorts Lieutenant-Colonel Dennis Foster, executive director of the Masters of Foxhounds Association of America, which represents 20,000 huntsmen and women. "England is the mecca of foxhunting. It's your heritage and was exported over here. If this happened in America, I and many like me would go to war against a government that does not represent all its citizens."

Plans are already in place to ensure that the bonds between American and British hunting remain, and that British huntsmen and women do not have to put away their scarlet coats. For three years Carla Hawkinson, master of foxhounds at the Tennessee Valley hunt, has been running Goneaway Tours. It is a specialist hunting travel agency, taking American hunters to England to fulfil an ambition and vice-versa.

"I hate to say it but I think business is going to pick up for us bringing English hunters to the US," she says. Her next big excursion is to take a group of 10 American hunters to Exmoor, Dartmoor and Wiltshire in mid-February. "Hunting is integral to the lifestyle loved by country people of all classes and occupations.

We are prepared to return to the homeland of hunting and to stand up for the rights of all hunters. If hunting dies in Great Britain, we have more to fear than the law."

Downing thinks more will choose to visit America to hunt and predicts an exodus of hunt staff from Britain. "My hunt friends are calling all the time about jobs over here," he says. "But there are only so many jobs to go round."

Downing and his family have no desire to go back -they hope to get American citizenship soon and trips to England are becoming rare. When he rides out tomorrow there will be nothing but satisfaction.

"I've never once regretted what we did -- even when we go back to England on visits," says Downing. "In fact, each time we go there and see how the country has changed, I feel less and less like going back."

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First Hunting Act Case Reversed

The first U.K. conviction under the Hunting Act has been tossed. Tony Wright, huntsman for the Exmoor Foxhounds, was found guilty in August of last year of having used two hounds to flush foxes to be shot in February of 2005, and he was to have been fined £500 for his supposed transgressions.

The case was reversed this week, however, as Judge Graham Cottle said the law that forbids the hunting of animals with dogs was "far from simple to interpret or apply" and that Wright had clearly made a good faith effort to work within the law.

Since the Exmoor is one of only two fox hunts to have ever been prosecuted successfully, this reversal is a real blow to the nitwits, halfwits and fools at the League Against Cruel Sports who brought the action. To see the wildlife management theories of the League in practice, see >> "Animal Right Groups Starving for Logic".

Meanwhile, as the Countryside Alliance notes, "More people have been convicted of hunting rats under the Act than have been found guilty of illegal fox hunting."

So what now? Time to repeal the law ladies and gentlemen.

A law that only make a mockery, while doing ill, is a travesty. A legal travesty is a threat to Democracy, as it debases the coin of law and the state. Strike the law!

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