October 14, 2013
Wicked Goes A-Hunting
Roger Collins in Middleburg, Virginia owns several retired foxhounds—“some more retired than others,” explains his friend Liz Williams, who sent us this GPS track. Roger fitted Wicked, a Penn-Marydel female (we must use the graceful word here, lest some computer firewalls mark us as Spam!) with a Garmin GPS DC-40 tracking collar and downloaded her track, complete with statistics of her jaunt, to Google Earth with the Garmin Astro 220 base unit.
Wicked started from home (upper left) traveling in a southerly direction, found a fox, made three big loops easterly primarily clockwise, from whence her fox abandoned the open fields and struck out for the woods (bottom right). There he remained, circling countless times, Wicked doggedly on his trail. Finally Wicked broke off the chase in the area where she kept having trouble with the line and struck out for home in the most direct route available, across the creek, along the edge of a field where she broke out onto Miller Road and straight home.
Movement in Parliament to Ease the Hunting Ban
A surprising multi-party coalition of MPs—Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Labour, and Plaid Cymru—in sympathy with the plight of farmers suffering livestock losses from foxes are backing Parliamentary proposals to ease one aspect of the Hunting Act. Under the Act as it stands, when a farmer wants foxes on his property killed, only two hounds are allowed to flush the foxes from covert to guns. The proposals under consideration would allow a full pack to be used. Such a change would bring the Act in line with Scotland’s ban. Farmers say that attacks on lambs have been increasing, and claim that the hunting restrictions under the Act are impeding effective pest control. A vote in Parliament will be required, but a new bill will not be needed for the change. Supporters are pressing Environment Secretary Owen Paterson to back the proposals. Although Mr. Paterson is a long-time supporter of lifting the ban, he has not yet made a public commitment. A furious debate is expected. Read John Bingham’s article in The Telegraph for more details. Posted October 14, 2013
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