Good old England is about to ban Foxhunting… Do Australians have the same attitude towards mounted followers of foxhunting as certain members of the British public/press, ie: toffee nosed blood thirsty public purse leeches, or are they more receptive to traditional methods of vermin control given the situation with native wildlife and introduced species and the associated problems. I only ask as I am on the verge of marrying an Australian with the intention of moving over there within the next few years or so…will I be thought of as another pom with an attitude or a defender of native species? - Pixie, UK

I could see a couple of conflicting reactions here. There are undoubtedly problems with introduced species bullying the native wildlife. In urban areas there are problems with cats beating up possums for their lunch money. In the rural areas its rabbits and foxes, though even native wildlife like kangaroos have been subject to culls over the years.

So it’s certainly true that if you front up and say “Hi, I’m here to kill foxes and rabbits”, they’d probably welcome you with open arms.

But… trouncing around on horseback, with hounds, wearing red, and blowing horns? That’s an entirely different prospect. The very image is something that would probably generate a number of reactions, I suspect most of them negative. Something along the lines of “bloodthirsty wankers”, I suspect.

And for those with a sense of history, it should be pointed out that foxes were brought to Australia with the intent of hunting them in the manner described above. As such, I would guess that this tradition is likely to be seen as part of the problem, rather than the solution.

That said, digging around a bit I found at least one group in Victoria that engages in it. There are probably others. A quick skim of their reports seems to indicate that they do indeed go hunting foxes, though it appears they are not terribly successful at catching any, which leads me to ponder that if the argument is defence of native species, there are probably more successful ways to do it.

If it’s all too much and you don’t want to hunt, but want to keep up the horse play, perhaps you should consider something considered to have slightly less of the bloodthirsty colonialist about it? Dressage perhaps? Or something else to do with horses? After all, we love our horses. There can be few places in the world where a public holiday is declared for a horse race.

• SideSaddle Australia: Hunting (warning: web page plays hideous music)
• Barwon Hunt

This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2003 at 4:05 pm and is filed under Wildlife. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.