Update on Stage 1 of the Hunting with Dogs Bill....WHY would any sane person even support the notion in 2022?

The actual page:

 https://www.scottishbadgers.org.uk/update-on-stage-1-of-the-hunting-with-dogs-bill/?fbclid=IwAR25Ec-vpjAHa0e9LM7jq9eDyyGQ-mviYFZcc7b64mc2wYUwxn_3yvuPQpA

Badger disturbance is still caused by the activities of some who use dogs in the name of ‘pest’ control and in mounted hunting in Scotland despite the latter having been illegal for 20 years.

The 2022 Hunting with Dogs Bill (HWD Bill) is intended to replace the Protection of Wild Mammals Act, to close off loopholes that allowed mounted hunts to continue hunting and killing wild mammals with dogs even though it’s been illegal for 20 years. Unlimited numbers of dogs at present can be used to flush unprotected wild mammals such as rabbits and foxes from cover but can end up chasing and killing the wild mammals.

The HWD Bill proposes all wild mammals be protected (except rats and mice), and a limit of 1 or 2 dogs. However, there remains the fear and distress during the chase, and the risk that the person cannot maintain control over the dogs.  If a wild animal goes underground to evade the dogs it would remain lawful to dig down causing protracted stress and fear.  

We are working with other organisations to press for the removal of the exceptions that would allow a limited number of dogs to be used to flush a wild mammal from cover or below ground, and other exceptions such as killing by falconry. 

Badger baiters and hare coursers commonly use the ‘excuse’ that they were after foxes or rabbits and so evade the law. These two species would in future be protected, which removes that excuse, however ‘ratting’ would remain as a potential smokescreen and licences could be issued that would allow the use of more dogs to ‘flush’ foxes, mink or rabbits.

Some members of the Committee have made the point that foxes have been killed year after year, but this makes no difference to lamb mortality or the fox population. If killing foxes makes no difference in the long run, is it either ethical or evidence-based to keep repeating this approach? Other approaches have been suggested including enhanced shepherding and flock guardian dogs, as used in other countries, that do not consider lethal methods as a first option. 

The SSPCA wrote to the committee to illustrate the severe injuries that badgers, foxes and dogs suffer when dogs are used in enclosed spaces.  

The Minister has agreed to consider the International Agreed Principles for Ethical Wildlife Management and to look at modernizing NatureScot’s Concordat: A Shared Approach to Wildlife Management which presently focuses on lethal approaches as a first option and is defined as:

‘the deliberate and targeted intervention by people to change the population, structure or distribution of wild species, particularly terrestrial mammals and birds’.”

The science-based evidence about lamb death rates shows that large vertebrates account for under 1.8% of the 10 to 25% of lambs that die annually, most die from birth-related complications and diseases, a complex picture as explained by the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission.

We will keep you updated as the bill moves into stage 2 this summer.

You can read the initial submissions of animal welfare organisations here:

Scottish Badgers

LACS

OneKind

SSPCA

Wild Animal Welfare Committee 

My response on the page where this was posted:

Firstly, badgers should not be hunted. Even the old hunting books by the 'great sportsmen' of the 19th century and before refer to badgers as creatures that create no damage BUT were fun to bait and hunt.

As for foxes there is still this false belief that the population is stable: it is not. During the 1990s, as a police wildlife consultant I spoke to a number of farmers and was shocked to find (and it is STILL going on) that stillborn lambs or dead sheep were tossed over hedges or fences to let the foxes clean up. I was told this by sheep farmers in Scotland, Wales and different parts of England. Biggest killer (proven by surveys over the years) of lambs is bad animal husbandry, diseases and various accidents including RTA.

Foxes will eat (as will crows and other carrion birds) dead lambs. Foxes are also observed eating the afterbirth as well as nutrient rich dung of yews.

We are in the year 2022 and still the same old rubbish is spouted -even the old 'sportsmen' ridiculed the idea that foxes were taking anything but dead lambs. Hunting with dogs is an obscenity -dogs used to tear up a fox or badger to 'maintain' the ecosystem is a joke.

With the British Fox Study set up in 1976 I have spent 4 decades looking at the question of badgers and foxes and sheep.

Only someone or body in the pocket of hunting would even consider the matter seriously. Yes -I have done farming and forestry.