Tally ho!!!

Well, one of the last things I expected to find here in Spain was a protest against foxhunting. Somehow you think of foxhunting as a singularly English activity, and one which led to a great deal of controversy when the decision was taken to ban it finally in 2004.

It always struck me as rather a feudal activity: lots of red-coated men (and women) on horseback, chasing an animal across fields, up hill and down dale. I remember being quite impressed (and not a little disturbed) by seeing just a small hunt go past our house about 20 years ago when we lived in the bottom of a valley just outside Oldham. I was also rather relieved that they didn’t need to ride through my vegetable patch.

In Spain in recent years, of course, there has been a fair amount of publicity about banning bullfighting. Barcelona City Council voted in favour of banning it in 2004 – quite a busy and successful year for animal rights movements! And then in December 2009 the Catalan Parliament voted to accept a popular petition for reforms that could put an end to the so-called sport in the region. The Canary Island apparently banned it 20 years ago.

So you can imagine my surprise when I saw a headline about protests at the VII Copa de España de caza de zorro today in Portomarín in the Lugo region of Galicia. A fox hunting competition? With a cup and everything?

It isn’t, as you will not be surprised to hear, foxhunting with lots of people on horseback charging across the Galician countryside, blowing horns and shouting, Tally ho! I know they love all things English here but that would be taking it too far. No, this is the version where you go out with dogs and guns and aim to shoot Mr. Tod before the dogs get a chance to tear him to pieces.

All the same, some 1,100 hunters took part in the competition and 94 foxes were killed. I have not been able to find out how they award the prize and I really don’t want to know that rather grim detail. That’s a lot of hunters and a lot of dead foxes, it seems to me.

The hunters justify their activity by saying that the activity is perfectly legal and besides there are 2.7 foxes per square kilometre of land in Galicia whereas the recommended number should be 0.7 according to organizaciones europeas defensoras de la fauna salvaje. Quite how do you decide something like that, I wonder? There must be quite a lot of foxes around, however, if we are to believe the hunters when they tell us that three times as many foxes got away as were shot, or rather, that in general on a day like today that's what happens.

The protestors, on the other hand, around 200 of them from around 25 different organisations, denounced the actitud salvaje of the huntsman and declared them to be cowards and murderers of innocent animals. This is not the first time the ecologists and animal rights protestors have tried to impede the progress of the hunt with whistles, banging on pans and generally making a noise to confuse the dogs and alert to foxes to the danger. This year though they were described as being quieter than usual but they do question the statement by the Federación Gallega de la Caza (Galician Hunting Federation) that there are too many foxes in Galicia. I suppose it’s a case of “well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?”

Now, I have to admit to a sneaky fondness for the fox and I have quite often admired the urban fox, crossing the Manchester ring road in the small hours of the morning. However, if there are too many foxes then I suppose you can understand harassed farmers wanting to keep the numbers down but does it have to be mass slaughter and a prize for the chap who bags the most foxes’ brushes?