Fox Hunting - should this be stopped?

[Fat Tone]

Its about time!

[Dr Mordrid]

Foxes in these parts don't need firearms

[Brian Ellis]

Foxes in these parts don't need firearms

Why? Not intelligent enough to take advantage of progress?

[Dr Mordrid]

No, vicious enough not to need them.

[Technoid]

Why? Not intelligent enough to take advantage of progress?

Other way around

[FatBastard]

IMHO, all "recreational" hunting should be banned.
It is cruel and disgusting.

[Mehen]

What about sport fishing?

[Dr Mordrid]

IMHO, all "recreational" hunting should be banned.
It is cruel and disgusting.

Most all hunters eat their game. We have well over 160 lbs of deer, goose, duck, upland fowl, small game and fish in the freezer now.

That our government chooses to allow citizens to cull the herds and use the meat instead of paying professional hunters to do it is the more economically viable solution. They get the herd culled, the license fees and increased economic activity in the rural portions of the state while the hunters get food, exercise and time in the woods far away from the riff-raff that couldn't support themselves in a survival situation if their lives depended on it. Some day we'll survive and they won't. What a pity.

[Kruzin]

Gee Doc, don't you know it's more humane to not cull the herds, and let them suffer and die from chronic wasting disease and starvation. Why should they die quickly from a hunter and feed his family, when they can spead disease and misery to the rest of the overpopulated herd?

I listened to an interview with the president and co-founder of PETA a few days ago. Even she acknowledged there is a need for hunters, and herd control (as long as it is done humanely and without waste).

[Dr Mordrid]

Yup, even a radicalized moron like her can understand a few bits of common sense

[Nowhere]

I wonder when someone will put IE logo on rabbits

[Fat Tone]

Dunno if it was too subtle? This was supposed to be a jokey thread

[az]

I'm actually surprised the political debating started in this thread, not the other one.

[Brian Ellis]

Sorry FT, but I feel I must chip in here. There is hunting and hunting. I have nothing against hunting by those who really NEED the food and have no means of obtaining it by other means, nor have I anything against professional culling.

I have everything against people going out and killing animals/birds/fish because it's a fun thing to do. I have everything against idiots who use an AK47 or similar in the vain hope of killing a rabbit. I have everything against those who shoot simply because they like creating noise pollution.

More parochially, about 50% of the male adult population go out every Sunday in the hunting season and, jobs permitting, every Wednesday, as well. They take pot shots at everything that moves. Not so long ago, Cyprus was rich in fauna. No longer. There is only one wild animal of any size that has survived, and that is on the highly endangered list, the Cyprus Moufflon, a wild sheep. Even so 2 or 3 are illegally poached every year. There are hares, but they are rare. Many mammalian species, including squirrels, deer, wild pig etc. have been totally exterminated, some endemic species. As for birds, the only reason the Chukar (a kind of partridge) has not been exterminated is that several 100,000 of them are bred each year by the government Forestry Dept. and released a few weeks before the hunting season starts. The Francolin still survives in small numbers. What really gets me, though, is that these idiots will shoot anything that moves (including each other). The other day 50-odd endangered Red-footed Falcons were hunted:

Outrage over bird massacre at Fassouri

ALMOST 50 red-footed Falcons Falco vespertinus have been illegally shot and killed and six were wounded in the Limassol village of Fassouri, near the main Kolossi to Akrotiri road.

The 46-falcon massacre was discovered by farm workers at the Fassouri citrus plantation in the early hours of Friday. Red-footed falcons are listed as “globally threatened” by BirdLife International, the internationally recognised authority on birds.
“Globally threatened is as bad as it gets, which makes this one of the worst cases of illegal bird killing ever reported in Europe,” said BirdLife Cyprus Manager, Martin Hellicar.

Full article

Even 2 species of vulture have been exterminated and a third one (Griffon Vulture) is highly endangered with only about 30 birds left (two shot last year). Yet, when I was here in the 1950s, there were thousands of vultures all over the island (OK, small habitat reduction and considerable prey reduction, because of shooting, have helped, but wanton shooting of easy targets of non-edible birds is responsible).

This proliferation of shooting has had secondary effects, such as lead poisoning of bottom-feeding aquatic birds, such as flamingoes.

If I were a benign dictator of this island, I would regulate hunting to a strict minimum and fill the Central Prison with poachers.

[Brian Ellis]

By chance, in today's newspaper. And you wonder why I'm against hunting?

Another barbaric massacre, as colony of rare fruit bats ravaged by gunmen
By Leo Leonidou and Michelle Kambas

A PROTECTED colony of rare fruit bats in Cyprus has almost been wiped out by unidentified gunmen using them for target practice, conservation groups and authorities said yesterday.

Dozens of the mammals, which are under threat of extinction, were killed in a shooting spree in the fenced-off Vretsia cave, next to the Xeros river in Paphos. From a colony of about 60, only 10 to 15 survived, conservation experts said.

They said the shooting probably occurred on Sunday, but discovered the carnage only on Wednesday.

"The cave is nowhere close to a residential area so I can only assume people were doing this for kicks," said Harris Nicolaou, a conservation officer with the Cypriot forestry department.
The population of the once plentiful fruit bat has declined rapidly in the past century because of government-sanctioned extermination programmes under British colonial rule before independence in 1960.

The Paphos Forest is a Game Reserve Area and Natura 2000 site, with the cave protected under the EU’s habitat directive.

While the mammal can also be found in the Middle East, Pakistan and north India, there were a maximum of 3,500 left in Cyprus, said Nicolaou, who tracks the bats.

"This is now a strictly protected species, it is the only fruit bat we have, and the only fruit bat in an EU member state," he said.

Bats are associated with superstition in other cultures but in Cyprus, they are considered more as pests that eat fruit.

"That perception is actually wrong," said Nicolaou. "It will only eat over-ripe fruit."

“There was a colony of around 50 to 60 Egyptian Fruit Bats (Rousettus aegyptiacus) in the cave, but their numbers have now been reduced to ten”

He added that this was the fourth such incident at the cave over the last four years.

“Two months ago, after a similar thing happened, we fenced off the cave and put up warning signs,” Nicolaou explained. “However, three or four individuals managed to jump over the fence on Sunday afternoon.

“One went inside the cave and started shooting, while his colleagues waited outside for the bats to fly out, where they were clinically picked off.”

He said that only 20 bodies had been retrieved due to the thick vegetation in the area, while survivors may have been able to fly away.

“These people consider bats to be pests, alleging that they destroy crops. But there are no crops in the area. The fruit bat, as its name suggests, eats fruit, which is not suitable for commercial sale or human consumption.

“It also actually protects crops by controlling numbers of the destructive Mediterranean fruitfly, which causes a great deal of damage.”

According to Nicolaou, there remain around 3,500 Egyptian Fruit Bats on the island, with numbers declining due to similar incidents recorded every year.

Cyprus has 16 species of bat, and is the only EU country to have the Egyptian fruit bat. All bat species are strictly protected by both European and national legislation.

Following news of the killing, the Green Party issued a statement: “Despite measures taken by the Forestry Department and the Game Fund for the protection of the bats’ habitat in Vretsia, irresponsible hunters entered the protected zone and started shooting in the cave, resulting in the deaths of tens of Egyptian fruit bats.”

The statement added that this was not a one-off event. “In the past, hunters have repeatedly damaged bat habitats in different areas of the island, especially in Paphos and show complete disregard for the law. We call on the authorities to take stricter measures to protect bats and punish those who break the law.”

"There are still those who regard bats as vermin, but these were clearly people using these creatures as target practice," said Christos Charalambous, a member of the Green party who has tracked the colony for years.

"This is part of the wealth of our bio-diversity, I cannot understand why it is happening."
Those found in violation face a £1,000 fine and/or six months in prison.

President of the Hunting and Wildlife Conservation Association Andreas Kyprianou hit back at suggestions that the culprits were hunters.

“The latest information I have is that the man responsible owns some land in the area and the bats have been eating his fruit. He rounded up a couple of his friends and they went to shoot them.”

He described their actions as “unacceptable”, adding that hunters have no problem with bats, which are nocturnal creatures and do not disturb them.

“In fact, we want to protect bats and feel this is a critical issue,” he said.