Live and learn

I learnt yesterday that there is a mu-hassive loophole in legislation that allows fox hunting to carry on practically unchanged in the country since the ban in 2004. (some info about this here)

Basically it is fully legal to hunt a fox with dogs, as long as you kill the fox before the dogs get to it. This could be with a gun i.e. shoot the fox and then giving it to the dogs to rip apart before dousing yourself in it's blood, or sometimes a bird of prey is used to kill the fox (I found this quite hard to believe).

Frankly, I find fox hunting abhorrent, and cannot begin to understand the motivation of people who consider this a spot (and a tradition worth preserving).

Why anyone should be able to kill another creature in the name of 'sport' or 'entertainment' is beyond me. This goes for deer stalking, grouse shooting, fishing, trapping and all manner of different ways we as humans have found to waste life and interfere with nature.

I was happy to read that the proposed cull of badgers to halt the spread of bovine TB, which was thought to be linked to them, has been abandoned. There is scientific evidence that badgers do not exacerbate bovine TB, and that a cull could actually lead to worse conditions. The Woodland Trust provide a good summary to the background of this.