A few years ago an Iranian prince paid a lot of money to a S.American government to be able to shoot the highly endangered Spectacled Bear, and rich Saudis are travelling in their mobile mews to Pakistan to hunt highly endangered bustards with their falcons. If fox hunting on horseback with dogs involved the hounds being muzzled, the activity being shown to have purpose, say vermin control or research, the fox after being cornered dispatched humanely, or processed scientifically,e.g. blood sampled etc. and then released, I might well find I could approve it.
In its current form I find riding to hounds something I cannot approve. This hinges around my theme of respect for the hunted and the application of humane principles as far as possible to all sentient animals. Here you will find some overlap between my beliefs and those of ARists. You question my claim that psychopaths exist at an intermediate level, yet you yourself mention individuals who enjoy fire crackers up cat’s backsides, etc.
Note how such persons emerge from the woodwork whenever the rule of law breaks down. Six million people slaughtered in six years took an infrastructure made up of more than just a handful of deranged Nazi lunatics. As did the Rwanda genocide, and what is happening in Darfur as I write. My contention is that putting guns into the hands of such characters and allowing them to hunt not only doesn’t address the problem, it gives us conservation problems to boot.
