FOXES: killed by milk of human kindness
FOXHUNTING has been back on the national political agenda in a big way again of late with 'pro' and 'anti' hunt groups tearing each other to pieces. There can be few rural issues which rouse people to fury so quickly as foxhunting - whether you support it or are implacably opposed.
As I've said before, I have never hunted but I have been an angler, which to some people is equally cruel.
Generally, I support foxhunting, although it is not an activity I choose to pursue myself.
However, I don't feel morally outraged by it, as many others undoubtedly do.
It seems to me there are limitless aspects of life people can feel morally outraged about.
Even in the current Government, there are individuals whose personal tastes would probably have seen them imprisoned or even executed in past centuries.
Yet these same individuals too often claim the high moral ground in lecturing country groups on how they should be conducting themselves. Times change but our need to demonise minority groups in our midst appears to stay the same.
Critics of foxhunting like to compare it with bear-baiting which is misleading as tethered bears stood absolutely no chance of escaping, unlike foxes.
Even so, I felt alarmed by revelations that some foxes had been fed and pampered in artificial earths, specifically so that they could be caught more easily by hounds.
This was a genuine perversion of hunting and I was relieved to see the Countryside Alliance unreservedly condemning the practice.
Whatever happens as a result of the latest moves to ban foxhunting, it is unlikely to affect the fortunes of our urban foxes.
Most towns and cities now have their own thriving populations, well away from the threat posed by hounds.
For these foxes, the chief killer is the car but human sentimentality can prove just as deadly.
In Bristol, foxes were once so plentiful that they were regularly spotted scavenging for food in daylight.
Delighted residents fed them by hand.
Numbers multiplied yet further.
At its peak, Bristol's fox population boasted 33 adult animals per square kilometre, an amazing number.
Hundreds roamed the city at night but, eventually, this unnaturally high concentration proved the foxes' downfall.
When disease struck a few years ago, foxes were powerless to escape each other and the population crashed.
Less than three per cent of the Bristol population survived the ravages of a virulent form of mange.
The rest died in agony.
What happened in Bristol should be a lesson to us all to rein in our rose-tinted view of the natural world.
Sometimes, the milk of human kindness can turn out to be a poison for animals.
