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Well aye; but if you're a farmer out rough shooting and worried about foxes on your land how much extra faff is it to stick a couple of buckshot cartridges in your pockets?
And is thundering about the countryside with 30 horses at a time actually a better pest control method (hunting advocates always make a big deal about how the noble fox often gets away...)? Because if not, the argument against drag hunting seems to be 'fuck you, we like tearing animals apart like we always did'.
Thrustvector-
Well aye; but if you're a farmer out rough shooting and worried about foxes on your land how much extra faff is it to stick a couple of buckshot cartridges in your pockets?
Unfortunately, by the time you've switched out the rabbit/pigeon shot for the buckshot the fox will have fucked off. That was really my point. Getting within clear shotgun range of a fox is sufficiently unlikely that it's not worth going around with suitable shot already loaded. Culling foxes is something you need to go about in a very focussed systematic way AFAIK.
And is thundering about the countryside with 30 horses at a time actually a better pest control method
I don't know. I wouldn't really defend fox hunting as a pest control method other than by saying, "if people want to spend their own time and money controlling pests in an inefficient way let them get on with it. " My issue with the ban was really that the arguments against hunting weren't clear or specific enough.
ffm
Why not just use a rifle then? Buckshot (as in heavy gauge shot) isn't good for anything you'd want to eat as it would just mince it, plus you'd still have to get closer than you would with a rifle, which is tricky because rural foxes are quite wary. If you're out rough shooting and came across a fox, even if you wanted to shoot it and were allowed to do so, the shot you'd have loaded for rabbit or pigeon would be too light to be sure of killing a fox. Plus shotguns are a bit less certain than rifles at range, because the shot always has a variable pattern.