Politics: British fox-hunting ban

In September, the British Parliament approved by an overwhelming margin of 356 to 166 a ban on hunting with dogs, to take effect in two years. This has been a fairly hot topic for a while, and a classic case of tradition vs. sanity. The practice hardly seems defensible:

For all the folkloric trimmings, though, hunting is hunting. The goal of a fox hunt is to run down the animal and kill it by snapping its spine. Sometimes, in hunter's language, the dogs "break up" the fox, Mr. Todhunter said, so there is barely a trace left when they have finished.

So there seems to be plenty talk of civil disobedience from those who seem to think that hunting foxes (hardly good game meat) with dogs is not akin to bear baiting, cock fighting, witch hunting and dog fighting. I enjoy this summary of the situation:

But this is not just about hunting. It is a question of what kind of land the British want to inhabit and, more important, who should have the right to define it. It is, for some, about class warfare and for others about democracy and the legitimacy of dissent. It is about centuries of tradition colliding with a modern sensibility that recoils from blood sports. It is, thus, about the ways of nature - "red in tooth and claw," as Tennyson defined them - competing with sanitized city-bred politics. And to listen to the hunters, it is they who are now the quarry.

And while I may be vegetarian, pro-animal rights, and generally anti-gun in the generic sense, I also grew up around hunters who taught me that the respectful and responsible practice of game hunting does not violate what seem to be the general laws of ecology. In many cases, human expansion has eliminated natural predators, and while I'm not in total agreeance with the practice, it's not insane at all to argue that well-meaning humans can offset this lack of balance through recreational hunting. It certainly beats purchasing meat from a factory farm, where the exploitation of animals is rampant and very well documented.

But fox-hunting with dogs does not receive this sort of logical protection. The traditional destruction of animals for sport and little other practical purpose will receive nothing but disgust from me.