Disgusted by this Daily Mail article. News or propoganda?

[jedimistress]

http://www.dailymail....in-weighed-38lbs.html

[Ann]

I didn't like it either jedi ...............but it depends if you are for or against fox-hunting I suppose.

[jno]

probably ate too many deep-fried Mars bars. Propaganda for what exactly? I don't believe in fox-hunting for fun, but I can't blame farmers for killing predators.

[shaneystar2]

At least it was shot humanely and not torn to pieces by a pack of dogs .

[Buenchico]

Well I'm no supporter of the Daily Mail but it's also currently the 3rd most popular story on the BBC news website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/...ney-shetland-17259087

I love foxes but, if it's really necessary to control them to protect livestock,shooting them has got to be better than hunting them with hounds.

Anyway, that fox doesn't look particularly bigger to me than some I've seen here in Suffolk.

[Ann]

Yes at least it didn't suffer, like the poor foxes being torn apart by hounds - ugh!

[NOX]

It's a sad but true fact that foxes kill not just to eat but for fun (I've had em decimate hens and geese and not take any). I can't therefore in all honesty blame a farmer for shooting them ( much as I personally think they're a beautiful creature). Is it propaganda? No I can't see that it is. Is it the biggest fox in England? I'm with Chris on that, it just looks like a medium largish run of the mill fox to me.

[tinkerbell23]

I dont like to see it hung up like that for photos and blood all over the guys shoes etc. poor baby :0(

[shoota]

I have a friend who used to keep sheep on a farm near Chichester. One day in the lambing season he went to check the ewes and found one in severe distress; she had been giving birth and a fox had killed the lamb as it was being born then gone on to eat into the rear end of the ewe. she had to be put down. There were two other dead and partially eaten lambs in the field as well.
In France I saw 13 dead hens where a fox had got into a coop and killed the lot, only one had been taken away.
However appealing a fox in good condition looks it is a senseless killer.

[slinkycat]

Those pictures were also in the Times a couple of days ago, not sure how it is propaganda.
Have to agree with Nox & Shoota, a fox killed 4 of our five hens but didn't eat them, although the heads were gone so I can only presume it was full after that.
We never intended them to be for the table, just as pets with the added bonus of eggs, not nice to find 4 decapitated pets strewn around the garden :( so I can fully understand farmers wanting to protect their livestock.

[craft1948]

Why on earth do you think it's propaganda..................if you're a farmer and something is eating your livestock you shoot the sodding thing.

[shoota]

Perhaps JM thinks that it is propaganda for the pro foxhunting movement?
I can't see that myself, it is merely a report of facts.
Incidentally it is a big fox although those in the country tend to be larger than 'town' foxes.

[FredPuli43]

Propaganda for town people.

.It's as bit of a myth that farmers shoot foxes. We have better things to do.Foxes eat rabbits, which are vermin and very destructive of crops, and so foxes are worth having (which explains why fox hunting was a 'sport'only)

Nobody shoots foxes around here; we do rabbits. As for foxhunting, getting 60 riders plus say 30 couple of hounds plus full time staff to go out maybe twice a week, and ride miles across country and then only in Winter, kiling only a few, was never "vermin control" as foxhunters later claimed. You wouldn't think much of Rentokil if they only killed your rats for a few months in Winter so as to make sure there were enough rats for next Winter!

A fox will only kill what it needs in the wild but let it in a hen coop and it is completely overwhelmed by the unnatural circumstances, man made, in which it finds itself and we all know the result. Commercial enterprises don't suffer that; your supermarket chicken has never been in danger from foxes. The answer is secure the chickens, don't blame the fox, though it is very upsetting when you don't manage that, as we all know.

[shoota]

Perhaps a pure arable farmer has a different attitude to foxes than a sheep or game farmer; I can see that anything which helps to control the rabbit population is a boon to the arable farmer but my friend had a mixed farm (cereals, roots and sheep) and I think that he would happily pull the trigger on the last fox on earth.

[RATTER15]

I can promise you that that fox is huge!! I have shot many hundreds of fox as a pest controller, I have never see one that big. Whilst a wild fox may seem large when you see it scoot across the field or up the street you will find that they are much smaller than that beast.

[jno]

well you just can't have been in East Anglia, Ratter, Everything is much bigger there. They are like Texas, only with swamps instead of oil.

[NOX]

Seriously Ratter, it's not THAT big, it's a biggish fox, but it aint JAWS;-)

[ummmm]

A couple of weeks ago there were 3 foxes sitting at my MIL's patio doors. Even stayed for photos...

[shoota]

I'm with Ratter sizewise - I too have shot a lot of foxes for pest control and have never seen anything approaching this size.

[boxtops]

I don't understand why this could be propaganda - for what?