Talk of bringing back fox hunting is over for now after this idea was quietly erased from the Queen鈥檚 speech when the enfeebled Conservative government outlined legislative plans today.
The pledge always seemed odd. After all, fox hunting is not a high priority for most UK voters 鈥� the vast majority oppose lifting the ban by repealing the Hunting Act. This feeling has been steadily rising and now includes 84 per cent of rural voters. Traditionally, though, animal welfare has not been a major decider of how people vote 鈥� in 2005 just 14 per cent thought that it was 鈥渧ery important鈥�.
A small group of Tories still counted on this being the case and persuaded prime minister Theresa May to include the promise of a free vote on fox hunting in the 2017 manifesto: despite assertions it was necessary to control fox numbers and reduce lamb losses, the key aim was to keep a hard core of pro-hunt rural voters on board.
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But it proved toxic, losing May votes, and possibly her majority 鈥� animal welfare is an increasingly important political issue, especially among young voters.
A reprieve is welcome. The backdrop is that British foxes are in rapid decline despite the 12-year ban on hunting. The British Trust for Ornithology, which has an international reputation for the quality of its monitoring schemes, estimated that , and continue to drop.
Pest control
Why is less clear. One explanation comes from extensive studies which showed that changes in fox numbers in Scotland from the 1960s to 1980s were related to changes in food availability, not levels of 鈥減est control鈥�. Rabbits are an important food for foxes: since rabbit numbers have fallen to less than half, this may be the reason.
In any event, the classic 鈥減est control鈥� argument for hunting has had no teeth for some time. Studies show it plays little role in regulating foxes. There was no hunting for nearly a year during the 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, and the countryside was largely closed, curtailing other forms of fox control. Yet fox numbers did not increase.
A study of Welsh gun packs (packs of dogs used to drive foxes to waiting guns) found that killing large numbers in winter had no effect on the breeding population. It even suggested that culling could be counterproductive because more foxes move in to contest a vacant territory, especially when key individuals are killed.
When one dominant dog fox in one of our Bristol study groups was killed in late summer, we recorded six resident and 26 non-resident foxes on its territory in autumn. It took another six months for numbers to fall to normal.
And despite anecdotal claims that hunting helps farmers reduce lamb losses, a succession of studies have shown that . In contrast, there are substantial economic benefits from foxes preying on rabbits, which eat crops. I calculated that, at worst, foxes are , and Oxford zoologist David Macdonald and colleagues estimated that they are financially beneficial.
Sadly, science seems to play a minor role in the fox hunting debate. A hard core of Tories remains committed to overturning the ban and, according to animal welfare groups, fox hunts still routinely flout the law under the guise of 鈥渢rail hunting鈥�.
Fox hunting is far from being consigned to the history books. But, if the political pundits are right, it looks as if its most prominent political supporter of late will soon find out what it feels like to be hounded to the point of exhaustion, cornered and torn apart.
