I am a traditionalist, but I love animals. I enjoy the pageantry of days-of-old, and am not one to root for change too easily, but what to do when the change might be better?
Either way, it became official in late February...the traditional English fox hunt is now illegal.
The British government ruled that it is cruel to use dogs for hunting, thus rendering the red-coated, horse-backed, horn-blowing, barking and howling hunt that gave us so many hilarious cartoons, illegal.
Remember the one with Droopy and all the foxes at the formal dining table in the hunting lodge? Hilarious.
Now, here’s another factor. Much of the English countryside has been kept and maintained to facilitate fox hunts at quite a good deal of profit to the lodges and farms that host the hunts. Hedges are left in place for riders to jump over and thickets are left wild for foxes to hide in. Many experts worry that the loss of this tradition will effect the landscape for the worse.
It’s better for the foxes, no doubt, but in a world where a lot of change ends up being for the worse, is it better to lose such a long-standing tradition? I’m officially on the fence on this one...
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