After hunting? What next? Shooting and fishing of course.


We're delighted to see that our L.A.U.G.H. campaign to encourage animal lovers to help the police arrest hunters has proved enormously popular.

Now that the League Against Cruel Sports has taken up our campaign I'm confident that hunting will soon be little more than an unpleasant memory.

The majority of hunters will, I suspect, soon prove to have bigger mouths than balls. Once one or two have been arrested and given criminal records (no more trips to Disneyland or sitting on the bench as a magistrate if you've got a criminal record) the rest will quietly slink away to do whatever retired hunters do. We all need to keep our eyes and ears open for boastful comments from hunters. The people who hunt tend to be pretty stupid and, if they do carry on killing animals illegally, shouldn't be too difficult to catch. Send any evidence you have to your local Chief Constable and demand action. The police always had plenty of manpower to give hunt opponents a hard time so they can hardly suddenly claim that the anti-hunting law isn't a priority.

We can all put February 18th in our hearts as a day to remember for ever. (No thanks to Tony Blair, of course.)

Today, on the television news, I saw a hunter openly crying because the law now stops him taking part in the ritualised slaughter of wild animals.

It was, I think, the only time in my life when I've been pleased to see someone crying.

Some time ago I wrote that we only had to beat the hunters once.

I still believe that.

Now that hunting is banned it will never again be made legal.

But with hunting destined to be history there are still many animal abuses for us to tackle.

Number one on the list is, of course, vivisection - pointless and indefensible cruelty. (Elsewhere on this Web site I explain exactly why vivisection is pointless and indefensible.)

And halting the unpleasant ways that farmers treat their animals needs to come high up on the list too.

But shooting and fishing can now also be placed openly on the agenda.

During the hunting debate those defending hunting frequently claimed that those of us who wanted hunting banned would `go after' shooting and fishing next.

(Am I the only one who suspects that a good chunk of the money which has paid for the pro-hunt campaign has come from those involved in shooting and fishing? Both are big industries with a lot to lose. They knew that if hunting was stopped we would go after their `hobbies' next.)

Well, they were right.

We can now start openly campaigning to ban all shooting and all fishing.

Shooting first, I think.

We've now got the hunting, shooting and fishing fraternity on the defensive.

Let's keep them that way.




Copyright Vernon Coleman 2005 Home