But a fox's lot often is not a happy one, for good reasons. Hunters have responded by brandishing Thomas Macaulay's observation that the Puritans banned bear baiting not because it gave pain to bears but because it gave pleasure to spectators. Both witticisms are pertinent. It was said of Margaret Thatcher that she could not see an institution without wanting to swat it with her handbag. British leftists have a similar itch to tell people what they cannot do.
Foxes are, in their fashion, cute, even elegant.
However, farmers will be forgiven for not seeing them that way. They are pests that must be controlled. Which is why far more foxes are killed by shooting, trapping, snaring and poisoning than by foxhounds. These methods, all of which seriously compromise the welfare of foxes, often involve agonies more protracted than that of foxes caught by hounds, even if it is not the case, as hunters insist, that the hounds usually kill the fox within seconds by a neck bite. Hunting foxes with hounds is not necessary for control of the fox population.