Smellydog
Well-Known Member
Town
Foxhounds uninvited appearance
- Thread starter Rhodesianjess
- Start date
foxdropper
Well-Known Member
Best get yourself familiar Snakey 
shakey jake
Well-Known Member
just read through your link and the list it relates too cant see fox? can you help find it?
shakey jake
Well-Known Member
have you got a link o wise one?Best get yourself familiar Snakey
Regardless of whether a licence is required to release foxes (I suspect that it isn't, but I don't know for sure), it's the reason why a hunt - which is no longer allowed to hunt foxes - would be releasing them within its hunting area that is worthy of further investigation.
shakey jake
Well-Known Member
Release of a captured fox is likely to constitute an offence under the Animal Welfare Act 2006, see https://assets.publishing.service.g...u02-animal-welfare-act-wildlife-managment.pdf
foxdropper
Well-Known Member
Spot on Willie .You’d of thought Snakey been all all over that with his dry wit and sawdust for brains .
shakey jake
Well-Known Member
thanks that does make sense. im not for one minute saying you should release a town fox in the wild. just waiting for the link to a doc. its hard to keep up to date with the changes in wording of the rules/laws we need to abide by
foxdropper
Well-Known Member
Best stay in Snakey ,it’s a scarey world out there bud .
There is no license.
The license referred to in the previous link relates to the release of native species whose release is normally prohibited. For the list of those species you need to look at Schedule 9, parts 1, 1A and 1B of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.
However the fox isn’t on that list.
The Animal Welfare Act 2006 places the onus on the person doing the releasing to ensure the animal being released in the wild will survive. This is why captured foxes are normally subjected to a “soft-release”, where they can be monitored and, if necessary, fed and looked after before being fully released into the wild. A “hard-release”, where the animal is simply dumped, is in breach of the Act.
shakey jake
Well-Known Member
thanks @willie_gunn.
If you can't find it I don't suppose I will. Ring them up and ask them if it bothers you. I think we can be fairly sure though by using a modicum of common sense that trapping and covertly releasing wild foxes for the purposes of providing quarry for illegal hunting probably isn't permitted within the spirit of the law, whether that exact offense is referred to explicitly or not.
You’re very welcome.
shakey jake
Well-Known Member
i didnt for one minute think it was a good idea, or some thing that should be done. i just wantedto know if a licence existed
..
A lot of them aren't laws as such because they have never been tested in court. They are guidelines or regulations and it would be down to a court to adjudicate whether they had been breached or not and therefore whether that breach constituted a crime. A lot of firearms regulation falls into that category.
I agree it's not very helpful when you're trying to establish black and white lines to operate within for your own peace of mind, but unfortunately that is the nature of our legislature.
In a sense it is a tribute to the effectiveness of the regulations and the general law-abiding spirit among the British public, especially country people and firearms owners, that so many of these rules haven't become clearly defined in court proceedings.
As my post above, it is a grey area. I'm pretty sure a license exists, otherwise why have regulation relating to the breach of its terms. But it is entirely possible that no one has ever applied for a license specifically to catch and release foxes.
If so, without that specific legal precedent you have to look at the spirit of the law. And if that forbids the catch and deliberate release of other species you can be pretty sure that if someone doing that with foxes came to court they would have the book thrown at them and therefore IMO it is beholden on all responsible people involved in country pursuits to be highly suspicious and watchful of any activity which has a bad smell about it.
Bagged foxes are nothing new and I'd surprised at the naivete of some here in that regard. They even get frequently mentioned in literature from the Victorian era. Not least in Surtees' masterpiece Handley Cross and other writings.
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