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is there any reason why you need trained marksmen to shoot foxes but not rabbits?
The most efficient way I've heard of to reduce a rabbit population (short of myxomatosis) is lamping i.e., on the back of a landrover with a big spotlight and some people with shotguns. Rabbits are small enough that a shotgun will usually kill them quickly, or at least disable them enough to get to them and finish them off by hand.
Foxes, as I understand it, are tougher than that. You need pretty heavy shot in a shotgun to kill them, which most people don't carry round with them (which makes spontaneously shooting them if you're out for edible stuff unlikely). As a result you'd usually use a rifle to kill them. Rifle shooting needs tighter control and more training as the bullets carry further (shotgun pellets are ineffective above a couple of hundred yards).
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Rabbits are classified as vermin but foxes are not, hence why you are allowed to shoot them willy nilly.
Its worth remembering that its not just foxes that you can't tear to pieces with packs of hounds, its any animal that is not classified as vermin that you can't touch like that.
Hares, foxes etc are off limits. Rabbits and people with less money than you are fair game.
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Fair enough - I don't any any evidence beyond anecdotal about fox populations pre and post ban right now so will look in to it later. TBH I think that's symptomatic of the whole debate - largely based on emotions and with scant evidence. In terms of the hunting, most people who partake don't do it for the sick thrill of seeing an animal killed (the vast majority of the field are nowhere near when a fox is killed). Rather, they do it as it's damn good fun thundering around the countryside at high speed with your mates. That's a key misunderstanding, encapsulated by the cunt-slinging brigade in here, because it immediately writes off a large number of decent people (who might have different views towards the death of animals due to the nature of living in the countryside, but are by no means psychopaths) as bloodthirsty lunatics. People in the countryside feel like their way of life has been needlessly interefered with based on prejudice and misunderstanding, and would like to reverse the ban to stick one in the eye of the 'townies'
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@Thrustvector
I've never found the population control argument that convincing; have fox populations exploded since the hunting ban? As to shooting, is there any reason why you need trained marksmen to shoot foxes but not rabbits?
I can see there's an appeal to thundering around the countryside in a group - I quite like to do the same on a bike - but I don't see why that urge can't be fulfilled by point-to-points and drag hunting.