Animal torture increasingly popular.

[Bijou Drains]

Even still, hardly credible in many ways. Charities and special interest groups profit from exaggeration. Lots of clicks and money is made from cruelty stories. There was a story going the rounds about dogs in Portugal being put on fishing hooks to act as bait for sharks. Turned out to be a whole load of bollards, but the perpetrators of the hoax made millions. “Charitable work” is very often an adjunct to capitalism. Monetarising natural human empathy and understanding to pay the wages of chief execs and charity “nomenklatura”. I generally don’t give anything to charities, not from a spirit of meanness but because I’d rather give what I can give to others directly to them, where I can.

In terms of animal cruelty, I don’t think it is a rising issue, if anything it is falling. Historically bating and killing animals for “sport” was a widespread practice, bear bating, dog fights, cock fighting, bull fighting, fox hunting, badger baiting, etc were common and acceptable practices. Attitudes have changed, however practices have moved underground and again, due to capitalism have been increasingly monetarised.

I worked in Social Work out in the The West of Northumberland in the Cheviots and the edge of the Pennines in the 80’s and 90’s. Most of the hill farmers and sheep farmers despised the hunt. They would come through farms, destroy things, often the hounds would attack sheep dogs and generally cause mayhem to both man and beast. They tolerated them mainly because they were tenant farmers and couldn’t upset the land owning classes. Also the hunt would take any ewes which had died naturally, which happens as part of the life cycle especially in the winter. The cost of hygienically disposing of the animal carcass could have tipped their farm over the edge, so the hunt taking dead animals to feed their hounds was often the difference between eating or not eating.

The farmers knew how to attract and kill a fox which had become a danger to live stock in a very effective and quick way. Foxes that take chickens, etc. are often injured or moving to the end of their lives, often diseased or very ill. At night time they would run a bit of polyurethane foam against a piece of glass which creates a noise which is very similar to a dying rabbit. The older or diseased fox would come out and the fox would be shot very quickly and relatively mercifully. The idea that the whole of the countryside would be over run by foxes if the hunt was stopped, has been demonstrated to be absolute nonsense.

[Thomas_More]

Thank you genuinely for these insights.

[Author]

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