Hunting Hearings - Minutes of Proceedings
DEPARTMENT FOR ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS
MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS
at a
PUBLIC HEARING
on
HUNTING WITH DOGS
held in the
Boothroyd Room, Portcullis House, Westminster, SW1
on
Tuesday 10 September 2002
SESSION B
DAY 2
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Rt Hon Alun Michael, MP, in the Chair
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(From the Shorthand Notes of:
W B GURNEY & SONS LLP
Westminster House
7 Millbank
London, SW1P 3JA)
In attendance:
MR DOUGLAS BATCHELOR, Campaign for the Protection of Hunted Animals.
DR ARTHUR LINDLEY, Campaign for the Protection of Hunted Animals.
MR JOHN ROLLS, Campaign for the Protection of Hunted Animals.
BARONESS GOLDING, Middle Way Group.
MR PETER LUFF, MP, Middle Way Group.
MR LEMBIT OPIK, MP, Middle Way Group.
MR SIMON HART, Countryside Alliance.
MR JOHN JACKSON, Countryside Alliance.
MR RICHARD LISSACK, QC, Countryside Alliance.
MR BERNARD BENNETT-DIVER, Defra
MR CHRISTOPHER BRAUN, Defra.
MR NIGEL LEFTON, Legal Directorate, Defra.
MR DAVID PRITCHARD, Defra
MR NICHOLAS ROBSON, Defra
DR PETER ROBERTSON, Defra.
DR MATT HEYDON, Defra
(After a short break)
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much indeed. This is the long session as it involves part of the morning and part of the afternoon. That is partly because of the importance of the topic and partly, reflecting that importance, we have quite a number of experts giving evidence. What that is going to do is increase the opportunity for illumination through discussion, but it is also going to mean that we need a good deal of self-discipline on the part of questioners, in trying to put short, straight questions to an individual or the whole of our panel, and also I think on the part of those giving evidence, if you could, as far as it is possible without curtailing your evidence, be as succinct as possible in responses.
Our four experts for this sessions are Professor Stephen Harris, Professor of Environmental Sciences at Bristol University, Dr Douglas Wise, Lecturer in veterinary and animal husbandry in the Department of Clinical Veterinary Medicine, Cambridge University; Professor John Webster, Professor of Animal Husbandry at Bristol University; Professor Roger Harris, Chair in Sport Science focusing on biochemistry and physiology at the University College, Chichester, and Dr Andrew Butterworth, Veterinary Research Fellow at Bristol's University. Can we start on this topic, which is looking at methods that cause least suffering in controlling the quarry species population and its effectiveness. Can I ask Professor Stephen Harris to start off?
PROFESSOR STEPHEN HARRIS: Thank you. In my evidence I am going to deal with each of the quarry species individually, starting with fox. I am working from the basis I think we discussed in assembly yesterday that while there is a widespread perception that foxes need to be controlled or numbers will rise significantly, in fact there is no hard evidence to support this assertion, and I have already argued that the evidence affords the opposite viewpoint.
The key points seem to be that where foxes need to be culled it should be done most effectively within a limited scope of animals. The most widespread method of fox culling is shooting and is the technique that is perceived to be the most effective by practitioners. It is humane and it is extremely effective. It is widely argued that there are high levels of wounding with shooting. In fact, there is absolutely no evidence at all that this is the case. I give evidence in my submission where we looked at 824 foxes affected around rural Britain as part of a study into the health and condition of the British fox population. Just 0.6 per cent (5 out of 824) had old gunshot wounds and only 2 (0.2 per cent) had old snare wounds. So the evidence is actually very low. It is hardly surprising: rifle shooting is very effective. The average weight of a fox is only about 6.5 kilos for a male and 5 kilos for a female, they are light animals and even if the first shot with a rifle does not kill it outright you can quickly dispatch it. I have seen several hundred foxes shot at night with a rifle and I have yet to see a wounded animal escape. The main problem with relying on shot guns is actually not shotguns that are actually used for the control of foxes, and the main problem here is that when people see foxes when they are out shooting birds when they are loaded with live shot they take a shot at a fox anyway. That is when wounding occurs, it is at a low level and that is easily addressed by a change in the legislation.
I talk briefly about the use of shooting with gun packs. The problem with that is that there is a high level of wounding that has been reported extensively, and if that sort of operation is to be effective and have low levels of wounding it obviously depends on the size of the area being covered, the density of guns and the speed at which the foxes are driven out of cover.
I talk briefly about the snare. I have already said there is little evidence of old wounding from snaring, but also there is little good evidence that snaring is effective and it is killing a lot of non-target species, and also there is little evidence of the level of snare use is very wide. A keen snarer probably runs about 30 snares for 60 days of the year. That is a low level of usage and would not have much of an impact. I point out that snares already illegal in most European countries.
If I was mischievous, Minister - and I would not be mischievous, obviously - I would also point out that the Labour Party Manifesto in 1983 said the use of snares will be made illegal.
I look at the other welfare standards in other European countries with regard to foxes. I think that we have very low standards compared to those countries. I also say there is a lack of standards across species. There is little doubt that badgers and deer cause greater economic loss than foxes, yet both species are afforded close seasons and much higher welfare standards.
I also point out in the table I have submitted to you that there is little evidence that fox numbers are rising inextricably as a result of limitations on when or how they can be controlled.
On deer I point out that deer are found in all landscapes in Britain and they are controlled primarily by shooting, with one quarter of a million being shot a year. Again, the wounding rate associated with stalking is actually quite low. I guess the best assessment is done by Bradshaw & Bateson, who try and assess in a constructive way. The wounding rate by stalkers will have to be far higher than any estimate that has been suggested so far for the cessation of hunting to have no welfare benefit.
The other issue I raise is the Deer Act 1963 was introduced to improve standards of culling deer and standards have increased dramatically since that time and continue to increase due to training courses run by BDS and BASC. It is not surprising, therefore, that Bradshaw & Bateson concluded that reducing the welfare costs associated with hunting was much less feasible than reducing those associated with stalking.
I talked about hares, and again in most areas we do not need to control hares, our key aim is, in fact, to increase numbers. I point out that there is a need for a close season for hares. I point out it has been seven years since that action plan was published, and the action point was Defra's responsibility. I point out the whole attitude that we need to have a close season with hares comparable with the rest of Europe from January to September inclusive. I point out that shooting is the most effective way to cull them at night with a rifle or driven hare shoots. I point out that even if a hare is wounded in a driven shoot it can be dispatched quickly. I point at great pains that it is part of the Defra contract to try and collect hares that die or are found dead in the countryside as part of a study to see what cause limits to their numbers and what causes the populations to decline. Out of over 1,000 hares we have managed to collect - some shot, some are found dead from road deaths, and so on - we only found one that had a shot wound which actually led to its death.
I also point out that we are also the only European country that allows the use of snares to take brown hares. I also raise the issue that it is unclear how we interpret the 1984 Convention on natural habitats in respect of regulation and the limited amount of culling allowed.
For mink I point out the widespread method of controlling mink is trapping, it is humane and effective. It can be extremely effective at a local level but widespread trapping is not going to reduce numbers. I point out that in the 1960s when mink were still colonising in Britain there was a campaign to eradicate or reduce numbers and it failed. It may be effective on islands. I point out that the CSL are currently trying to eradicate mink on some of the Outer Hebrides. They also discussed the issue of whether dogs play a role in helping them in their eradication programme, their conclusion is that they do not. They are also concerned about the use of dogs for disturbing otters and also how to train dogs to avoid otters but find mink. I conclude that for mink other methods of control are less effective for trapping and less effective than habitat management in reducing the impact of mink in native species. Thank you.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much indeed. Dr Wise?
DR WISE: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I must start by thanking you, Minister, for inviting me here. I am passionate about animals, they are in my mind most of the time and I am in their company most of the time.
I would like to try and explain how as, if you want, a self-confessed animal lover I can justify spending a high proportion of my disposable income on recreational hunting. I use the term "recreational hunting" in the American sense since I do not actually hunt in the English sense, but I do shoot and fish.
Given that shooting and fishing are certainly not necessary, neither for that matter is meat eating, I am going to assume that the definition of unnecessary when used in the definition of cruelty, the word "unnecessary" relates to the method of killing rather than the need to kill.
I will focus my comments on the suffering issue and make three simple points which if necessary can be fleshed out in subsequent discussions. I will first suggest that leaving animal populations to control themselves is often the least humane option. I will then explain how difficult it is to render wild animals instantly insensible and suggest that the suffering associated with death by shooting is often considerably underestimated by opponents of hunting.
Finally, and possibly most importantly in the context of control by scent hounds, I will suggest there are major differences between human and animal minds such as to make arguments from analogies with the human condition unreliable. Inappropriate anthropomorphism leads to a huge over-estimation of the suffering experienced during the so-called chase.
All wild animal deaths will generally involve some suffering and occur prematurely when judged by captive standards. Recreational hunters understand this, the enjoyment they gain is not because of the suffering but despite it. They maintain that the quarry species enjoy a better deal throughout their lives than animals do that are uncontrolled or controlled merely as pests. As an example, the fox - a species in which about three animals out of four die by nine months of age and thereafter 50 per cent per annum - need a death to keep numbers stable of somewhere in excess of 400,000 a year.
Professor Stephen Harris correctly informs us that foxes will eventually self-regulate their numbers without the necessity for control. Recent research almost suggests that they are at their maximum carrying capacity. What is not spelt out is that self-regulation is in a large part the consequence of unsatisfied hunger. The result is starvation, impaired reproduction efficiency or increased susceptibility to disease, classic indicators of protracted poor welfare.
People who lack detailed knowledge of the subject rarely appreciate how difficult it is to render animals immediately insensible when trying to kill them unless having first taken them to an abattoir. From personal experience, and a study of available literature, it is unfortunately evident to me that the death of a wild animal by rifle or shotgun rarely leads to the instant oblivion that opponents of hunting would have one believe and is, on balance, no quicker than that effected when hunting dogs do the killing, provided that the period of the chase (prior searching, tracking and short final pursuit by sight) is discounted. The chase is in some way analogous in wild animals to the transport to an abattoir in domesticated stock.
One great virtue of hunting with dogs is that it leaves no wounded survivors and, furthermore, it results in the selective killing of animals already damaged or diseased. As an example 45 per cent of deer accounted for by deer hunts are previously wounded or diseased animals. When there is no back-up from dogs shooting can have severe adverse welfare implications both because of the animals that escaped wounded and the possibility of leaving orphaned young when the shooting is done for pest control purposes. Other methods of control also have some other disadvantages plus extra problems of unintended by-catch.
I finally ask the question, why pick on hunting while leaving other field sports alone? I think it is pretty obvious that what objectors find most repellent about it is the so-called chase. I think I would feel the same way if I believed, as Professor Morton does, Professor Stephen Harris or Professor Linzey do but I do not. Few critics realise that the chase is conducted at an average speed that seldom exceeds walking pace. Scent hounds use tactics that are utterly different from wild dogs, which hunt by sight in a relentless pursuit. Animals hunted by scent hounds are unaware for most of chase they are hunted but they have no understanding of the consequences of being caught and have no concept of death. Their fear will be confined to periods of hot pursuit and be of the visceral type that we might instantly experience if we skid on an icy road and before we start thinking about what might have been.
There have been massive advances in knowledge even since the Burns Inquiry about the substantial differences between human minds and those of other non-primate vertebrates. Quite simply, animals are incapable of the intensity and prolongation of emotional suffering that human empathic minds ascribe to them. This is, indeed, fortunate for them because otherwise their lives in the wild would be hell with or without the attentions of man. Thank you.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much indeed. Professor Webster.
PROFESSOR WEBSTER: Once again I have a power-point presentation. I am dealing specifically with what I have been asked to deal with, that is to say the concept of the least suffering in relation to hunting with dogs in relation to alternative methods for population control. I am dealing first of all with the humanity, or in other words, the element of unnecessary suffering with the killing process itself. I am also considering the utility of the overall hunting strategy. I will probably substitute the words "hunting strategy" for "killing strategy" there because it involves not only actually killing the animal but the selection of the quarry, the dispersal of the quarry which can be part of the overall hunting category and this should be seen in the overall context of the humane stewardship of a living environment.
In the context of foxes I wish to present a small amount of evidence that has been gathered by ISAH, (the Independent Supervisory Authority for Hunting) within its brief to establish a protocol for monitoring and regulating the nature of hunting, not to preserve the status quo from an independent position but with the overall objective of meeting humanity, utility and general stewardship of the living environment, the object being not to defend the status quo but actually to seek a strategy that promotes, in a utilitarian sense, better overall welfare in the hunting environment or in the countryside.
From the ISAH records - which were collected only over one year, which was a foot and mouth year - it is intriguing that approximately 15 per cent of the hunted foxes, (only 8.9 per cent of those roused) were killed above ground, let us say "for sport".
The second statistic is that approximately 50 per cent of the foxes were dug out and killed at the request of the farmer, and only at the request of the farmer on whose land it was hunted, for strictly utilitarian purposes. This might upset a lot of people, including many of the hunting community themselves, but it does make the practical point that from this evidence that 50 per cent of the killing of foxes by the hunt has been strictly for utilitarian purposes, not as an element of sport.
As I said earlier, if the proportion of roused foxes that are killed is less than 10 per cent it follows that most roused foxes expect to escape. Those that do not escape - Dr Butterworth will talk about this later - will, I believe, move from the point of being stressed to suffering at the very end of the chase when, in fact, they are run down. If on average that duration was say one to two minutes that would be a period of one to two minutes suffering. That may be equated, for example, with what would almost certainly be a shorter duration of suffering compared with many other forms of killing, such as gassing, etc and trapping.
In relation to shooting I support the point raised by Dr Wise, if you get a perfect shot to the head death will be instantaneous, but nearly all other forms of shooting will probably lead to a loss of unconsciousness in one to two minutes. If that duration is not significantly different from the duration of suffering involved in being run down by hounds then there is no significant difference in the degree of suffering in both cases.
In the case of deer, this is the hunting of deer by hounds, the objective, of course, is to bring the deer to bay. I think we can take it that the killing by shooting the deer while at bay is reliable and at the very end humane. I have evidence which I will bring in later in the day indicating from the South-West 20 per cent of the deer killed had previous evidence of shotgun wounds and this is one indication of the wounding element as an alternative practice. I will come back to that under stalking.
From the evidence of both the Bateson Group and the Harris Group I am satisfied that deer are experiencing extreme exhaustion at the end of the hunt for possibly up to 30 minutes before the end of the hunt, although that is not proven. My own interpretation of that is that the deer which can naturally move away from the scent hounds early because it moves faster will only experience both exhaustion and probably fear that it is no longer coping towards the end of the hunt. This duration could be as much as 30 minutes. In my view that is longer than it should be.
I do make the point that where this may be intense suffering for a period the duration of suffering experienced by the hunted deer hunted with hounds is undoubtedly less than the duration of suffering experienced by many (not all) deer transported to abattoirs, In the least suffering equation the deer farmers do not in my book come out substantially ahead of the game. I do make the final point, and I am sure Professor Harris will agree with this as well, that it will be possible to modify deer hunting in a way that brought the deer to bay in a more humane fashion.
In relation to hare, hunting with beagles, harriers and amazingly Basset Hounds the killing rate is less than 15 per cent and so by analogy with fox most hares expect to escape. Death, when it occurs, and the duration of suffering is quick. The hare hunting communities have made representations to ISAH that they are making a positive contribution to the overall welfare of the environment, of which the hares are there, and their general stewardship. I am not as yet persuaded by the evidence, and ISAH should seek more convincing evidence to this regard, and could do so through their monitoring process.
Finally, in relation to mink, my knowledge of mink hunting is limited, it appears to be a predominantly utilitarian aim to eliminate the mink as being a non-indigenous species, which appears to be both speciest and racist. The method appears to be designed to achieve optimum efficiency and therefore in my view they cannot be accused of seeking to create unnecessary suffering.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. Professor Roger Harris.
PROFESSOR ROGER HARRIS: I will address a number of slides rather than the two pages which I have written. I should preface this by saying I have experience only of the physiology and pathology through research of Red deer on Exmoor and the Quantock Hills. I intend to confine my comment to that species and those two particular areas.
I was involved with the second study, which followed the Bateson & Bradshaw study. This was set up in 1998 in order to confirm the findings which were reported in that first study, to extend them and to address some of the questions raised in the first Report and also to gain information on the nature of the physical capability of the Red deer itself.
In the Bateson & Bradshaw study the focus was on the metabolism and the immediate post hunt blood and muscle pathology, whereas in our own study, the second study, we took that on board and we included studies on the locomotory muscles to gain some insight into the nature of the animal itself, to widen the pathology investigations to include kidney and we used far more refined techniques when investigating muscle. We also propose to undertake a follow-up study in which radio tagged deer would have been allowed to escape after a short period of hunting and they would then be monitored for one to three days, killed and a proper investigation of whether or not severe damage to kidneys, muscle and blood had occurred during the hunt.
We were unable to do that part because we required a Home Office licence to undertake radio tagging and that was not granted. It was too late in the season for us to delay the study of these procedures. We proceed in fact with just the first two parts.
To give you some background to the nature of the deer, it has a biomechanical form which is consistent with fast and efficient locomotion. It has been stated that it is a sedentary species, it may be sedentary by dint of the fact that it has no natural predator in these areas. In fact it has a very efficient form, it has a very efficient locomotion.
Its muscles are highly oxidative. It has a high proportion of endurance, (oxidative and sprint, fast glycolytic muscle fibres). It has a very high initial store of muscle glycogen. These are all the features of a species with a large capacity for prolonged, intermittent, intense activity. Its athletic ability at the start of hunting is clearly much, much greater than that of the hound.
We considered at the outset in the design of our study three possible models that we would be dealing with and we would compare the relative abilities of predator with prey. It is in fact Model 111 that we will be dealing with, where the predator is athletically inferior to the prey. There is no possibility of the predator catching the prey until a number things have happened. In this case it is the prolonged chase that occurs, the deer being disturbed at frequent intervals, it undertakes an escape response which is fuelled almost totally by the use of locally stored carbohydrates causing eventually total glycogen depletion. Glycogen is the glucose polymer that constitutes the carbohydrate stored in muscle.
This was a finding which Patrick Bateson had observed, and although he used a fairly crude technique we were able to confirm and extend the fact that all deer at the end of hunting showed the same general picture, apart from a few which were either injured deer or diseased deer which showed a slightly different pattern, more similar to Model 11, where there is a fast chase resulting in acidosis in the muscle and the onset of local muscle fatigue.
The main findings of our study, which agree very closely with those of Professor Bateson, were that hunting proceeds with a series of disturbances leading eventually to a complete loss of muscle carbohydrate, the muscles essentially run out of petrol, at which point the deer fails to achieve an adequate escape. We estimated that this point was probably occurring with 20 minutes of active hunting still left before the cessation or the termination of the hunt itself.
The muscle showed evidence of focused and recoverable muscle damage, this was based on light microscopic and electron microscopic examinations, using various indicators, which I will not go into at this point. With the exception of one deer all the changes in pathology were clinically unremarkable and would be expected to be recoverable. This is based on observations of samples taken at the end of hunting. It was unfortunate that we were not able to follow up deer which had been allowed to escape. It is the concern of what might have happened to deer which have been hunted and escape that needs to be addressed. That is an issue which has not been resolved.
Finally, we could find no evidence of severe kidney pathology likely to affect the survival of escaped deer. Again there is a weakness in that we have no follow up measurements. There was moderate breakdown of red blood cells, which we attributed in fact mainly to the procedures that we were used rather than to something which was happening during the hunt itself.
I have reached the final slide, despite. I think, that despite an excellent start made by Professors Bateson and Elizabeth Bradshaw in their study, and the fact that we have now had a second study in the 1990s it is unfortunate that we are still in a position where major questions are unresolved. We do not have adequate, robust data on the behaviour of deer during hunting.
In Professor Bateson's study a large number of deer were observed but only at the intermittent intervals, perhaps once in a typical hunt. It is very difficult to draw conclusions from behaviour of deer based solely on one observation. We have no data at all on whether or not there is adverse pathology in the post hunt deer .
We included in our study a small sample of data on wounding in stalked deer, which was not an aim of our study, this amounted to only 13 deer. To be honest this is not adequate for drawing any conclusions whatsoever on wounding rates despite the fact I have seen that data used for that purpose.
Lastly I feel we still require further information on the relationship between cull methods and population numbers. Thank you.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank very much, indeed. Finally, Dr Butterworth.
DR BUTTERWORTH: My talk is going to take in a number of elements, ranging from the philosophical to the physiological. First of all I would like you to consider we are all going die, we are all mammals (indicates slides). How would you personally like to die? I would like to die in my sleep. Many of us will suffer before death with tumours, heart disease and various pathologies and, within the context of that most of us accept that there are some methods of killing, in this case methods of death, which we consider benign and some we consider abhorrent. I have given the abhorrent example of the lady who is due to be stoned once her baby is weaned (points to slide).
For animals we can also consider these ‘end stops’. We might consider that the beating and hanging of a dog before it is eaten would be abhorrent (points to slide) and the barbiturate overdose of a pet dog would be a benign end for an animal killing.
We might create a structure. We might say one end is abhorrent, one end is benign, and somewhere in the middle we have clearly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty. That is why we are here, to try and define doubt and uncertainty. In this case we must define what is lawful and unlawful. Something cannot be a little unlawful or necessarily unlawful. There is a line, a line has to be drawn on another line (points to diagram). I have created and it is a only a model - a line crossing another line as an indication of how many people we are concerned with (indicates graph showing effect of the threshold from lawful to unlawful). If we were all in agreement that this procedure was benign, and the line was at the ‘benign end’ we would all be happy. If we were all in agreement that the procedure was abhorrent and the line was at the other end we would all be happy. The problem arises with the middle area, with the real issue of making a decision.
In this case you can see that the people who would be disappointed, as viewed on this image, there (indicating line on slide) will be fewer than those not disappointed.
The utilitarian decision - a fancy word for the debate we are having now - is letting everyone say their piece, and for government to articulate its view on that.
We lawfully kill food species by a number of methods (indicating slide of permitted stunning and killing equipment), but what we would like to do in the ideal case is achieve insensibility in a very short time, that means stunning, either electrical, mechanical or in some species gas - in fact if you had bacon for breakfast you may have eaten bacon where the pigs were killed by gas. It seems an alien concept of course. In fact if somebody asked me how I would I like to be killed I would say, "I would like to be gassed in argon please".
After the stunning, we then have to kill the animal, the stunning renders the animal insensible, and then we have some time, a short-time, to bring about the death of the animal.
In relation to the killing of the animals we are talking about here and in relation to hunting with hounds, we already have a framework for methods we permit for killing mammals (indicating slide of unlawful and lawful methods). We do not use locking snares but it would be lawful to trap mammals in a cage trap.
In this country it is no longer lawful to trap animals using a ‘led hold’ trap but it is lawful to induce profound trauma to the fox, in this case by the application of multiple dog bites (indicated picture of a fox in a leg trap and a dead hunted fox).
On the world stage, the United Kingdom has a recognised position on issues such as whaling (indicates movie clip of whaling). In fact, governmentally we lobby against whaling for a number of reasons, population density being one, but also the humane aspects of the whaling process. Hunting with hounds is still lawful. This has caused some confusion internationally. How can the United Kingdom, from a governmental position have a viewpoint that is quite well articulated on whaling and a more confused viewpoint on fox hunting, hunting with hounds- deer hunting in this case (indicates movie clip of deer hunting)?.
We have talked a little bit about evidence, we need some evidence. There are two bits of evidence here (indicating a slide showing time from the first observation of tiredness to death), the first bit of evidence is provided by science, this is a dry subject, fundamentally presenting the facts in histograms, charts and tables and then there is the science of behavioural observation.
(Indicating a movie clip) Anyone with a modicum of animal interest can see that that this deer is not running at its maximum capacity, that the deer is ‘tired’. Some deer will maintain a ‘behaviourally tired’ nature for long periods during the deer hunt, for up to eight hours - though most hunts are between three and five hours. There is some evidence from Patrick Bateson's work, recently described by a previous speaker, that uses behavioural evidence to suggest a ‘start time’ for tiredness. He simply says when does this deer ‘look tired’. After that it cannot perform, from a behavioural point of view, maximally. He then e recorded the time from that point, to the death of the animals. Some of those animals were hunted in ‘tired’ conditions as you can see here, for up to 140 minutes, so over two hours (indicating time on slide).
Once again (indicating a new slide and movie clip) you have here a mixture of histograms, dry science and our visual behavioural measure. Once again the evidence in Patrick Bateson's work is that the substrate available for the animal to perform is depleted, and when that time comes - and we have already established that potentially a deer can run faster than a hound - but when it has no substrate, when the fuel tank is empty, and it can no longer do that, that is the moment when capture comes.
This (indicating a new slide) is very specifically in relation to fox hunting. Fox hunting is a multi part process, the fox is first pursued by the hound, and if it goes to ground, (and a number of foxes will go to ground), another process happens to the animal. It is then trapped and held, many would say, by a terrier. The reality is that a terrier is not simply guarding the hole it is actively engaged in perhaps an aggressive interaction with the fox here. And here’s some evidence of that. Anyone who has dealt with terriers will know that injuries are common to the terriers as well as to foxes. (Indicating slide) This slide shows bites on the muzzle of the fox and blood in the eye chamber.
We have similar evidence of profound injury to the fox killed by hounds (indicating a new slide). I am very willing to discuss the timed nature of the death of the fox, and I suspect, the actual event that results in the death, the profound changes that are caused by multiple bite wounds is going to be comparatively short, i.e. seconds to minutes, but not as short as some of the other methods.
Now we come to shooting (indicating a new slide). Shooting has been and is widely used as the major control method for all of the species we are discussing but it is an issue of using an appropriate weapon. Shotguns used from a distance are not appropriate for some species, whereas the use of a rifle by a competent trained, accurate marksman is very likely to be.
My final slide. This is a large study carried out in Africa in which nearly 900 impala were shot at night - not permissible in this country of course - lamping is the methodology used in that country. Although 6.3 per cent of an impala were wounded none of them survived. The time between wounding and death was comparatively short, the average time was 30 seconds. No animal finally escaped.
We have some evidence (indicates summary slides). We have a strange linear framework here on which to put methodologies. We are lucky to be living in a democracy, to have this debate/discussion as to whether hunting with hounds should be placed to one side or the other side of this lawful/unlawful line.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. Bearing in mind that is what we are here to debate that is a helpful way to come to the end. Can we move on to questions. Mr John Rolls.
MR ROLLS: If I can ask the first question to Professor Webster, in his paper his argument is that it is acceptable for some animals to suffer, sometimes severely for a possible tentative benefit for others, yet you note this argument is morally incomplete. In what respect is this argument morally deficient?
PROFESSOR WEBSTER: Any argument that only involves utilitarianism is morally incomplete one must build into any debate with humans or I believe any other sentient species the rights of the individual rather than the overall welfare of the general population. However, in a practical world one has to balance the common good, particularly with a managed population - we are talking about a managed population - one has to balance respect for the common good and good welfare throughout life with a proper concern for respect for the rights of the individual. That is a very difficult equation to make and that is really the essence of what we are discussing today. What I am really saying is I do not accept entirely a utilitarian argument.
MR ROLLS: The basis for the Burns Inquiry was the welfare of the individual animal, but you strayed outside that.
PROFESSOR WEBSTER: In my initial report I say that I believe that I do not agree with the terms of reference that Burns set for themselves, which related only to the welfare of the individual at and closely to the time of death. As I said in my previous submission I believe it is morally inadequate to consider welfare simply on those terms. One also has to consider the overall welfare of the population throughout their lives, the individuals within that population.
MR ROLLS: May I ask Professor Harris to comment on that.
THE CHAIRMAN: Perhaps we will invite all of the other witnesses to comment.
PROFESSOR STEPHEN HARRIS: I am not going to support Professor Webster on that, I think that is a (inaudible) viewpoint. We are used to dealing with domestic animals, where you are responsible for them throughout their entire life. Ecologists and conservationists would actually argue extremely strongly against Professor Webster because we are not responsible for managing them, we are not responsible for every stage in the process of their lives, in fact one of the problems we have and one of the things we want to encourage is what we loosely call the utilitary process. We want evolution to act on animals to help them evolve and that is what it is all about. Who coined that phrase, survival of the fittest. We have to let evolution decide which genetic make-ups are the ones that can survive and move forward, it is not our job to do that. We have no basis on which to decide which animals should be put down and which should not be, which genetic make-up, which particular diseases should go forward, and which animals because at one stage in their life they were a high parasite burden and should be put down.
I can give you an example of mange - Professor Webster quoted it - in the early stage of the mange epidemic in Bristol it took out a lot of foxes. We could have put down every single fox with the mange but some were resistant to the disease and recovered and it was those animals that were selected naturally that allowed us to re-establish the fox in Bristol. We could not do that, we could not look at those foxes and say that one has the right genes it lives, that one has the wrong genes it does not. We cannot do that.
Clearly if we find animals extremely distressed then, yes, it is our moral obligation to put them out of their suffering. We cannot move beyond that. We can not go round our country eradicating myxomatosis in rabbits and parasites in every mouse population. There is TB in cattle. There is TB in field voles out there, would you like to take responsibility to eradicate TB from them. We have to let evolution take its course.
DR WISE: In a sense I agree with Professor Harris because I think if you are a wildlife manager or a farmer nowadays it is very difficult to win. We are being asked by the conservationists not to interfere and allow suffering which would be utterly unacceptable in domestic animals yet at the same time we are told if we attenuate the suffering of those animals by managing them we are committing immoral acts, so there seems to be a big problem here. We cannot win with the moral agenda, which is possibly the most important one.
The other important thing is not animal welfare per se it is the level of consciousness of the animal and the degree which it can suffer. Although Professor Webster has defined suffering as poor welfare and when animals cannot cope in a sense Dr Linzey mentioned another definition of suffering in which an unpleasant and adverted stimulant which you do not like being applied to you but which does not cause difficulty is one which is suffering and therefore should not occur.
Of course there are lots of animal welfare people that have those views but if we started treating animals by attending to all of those matters we would be treating them very substantially better than we treat our own population. There has to be a balance.
PROFESSOR ROGER HARRIS: The only comment I have is in the case of deer in the South West, again you have a rather artificial situation in that there is no natural predator in that particular area. If you allow evolution and only evolution to take its course what you are really saying is it will allow the population numbers to increase to the point they are barely sustainable by the local area unless you introduce some deliberate cull policy. That seems to be the issue.
DR BUTTERWORTH: In relation to the actual reality of how a fox hunt or a deer hunt is carried out, the evolutionary argument is interesting, but it is a bit of a diversion in the sense that, in the deer, if a deer is identified and is needed to be removed the process is that - before the hunt somebody identifies a target animal - and it strikes me that if you have gone to the bother of identifying a target animal, got close to it, would it not be pragmatic to shoot it there and then, rather than waiting until the next day and pursuing that animal and perhaps then catching that animal, or another one. It is very common that the identified animal is lost and the pursuit continues with another animal.
In relation to fox hunting we have already heard, in evidence this morning, that perhaps only 14 per cent of animals that are ‘roused’ are caught on a given day, that means that other animals are not caught on that given day. Is this a very focused way of identifying a problem animal, a target fox?
PROFESSOR WEBSTER: If I may briefly respond to Professor Stephen Harris's point that we should leave it to natural selection. The nature of natural selection is that each species seeks it own advantage and individuals within a species seek their own advantage and they win or lose as a consequence. If we left it to the natural selection we would be destroying the natural habitat at an even faster rate than we are at the moment.
Whereas I am of the opinion that we should as far as possible leave well enough alone, Professor Stephen Harris concedes the point that the very fact we seek to preserve habitat means we are managing wildlife species and therefore we are not leaving it to natural selection.
PROFESSOR STEPHEN HARRIS: I have not suggested that. All I said is we do not have a moral obligation to deal with every welfare problem for every animal. It is now being interpreted that I do not believe we should be culling deer numbers, I think we should be. I think we have a situation there where we do try and achieve a certain population level. Yes, we look to conserve habitats. The aim of conservation is to provide a habitat in which a population can regulate themselves in a natural process. That is what the process should be.
MR OPIK: I think that Dr Butterworth was right to say it is the strength of our democracy that we are having this conversation. I am hoping we can get to the facts that inform our decisions about what happens next, or the Minister's decision.
Professor Stephen Harris has given us his moral view about the degree to which we control animal numbers, and so forth, I am sure Dr Butterworth would agree that accepting that we are going to be killing fox and other animals the question here is really what is the most humane way to do it. That is really what I would like to focus on rather about whether we should do it at all.
I have three short questions, the first question is you did say in your presentation that the fox experience profound trauma when killed by dogs. I wonder if you can explain specifically what you mean by that and then getting into the comparative debate we should be having what data you have to show that that is necessarily a more suffering related way to die for a fox than say shooting?
DR BUTTERWORTH: (If I might I will ask the IT chap to replace my slide.) My evidence for that is based on the very limited number of fox post-mortems, in total about 17 fox post-mortems have been done, which I think is rather surprising given that 20,000 foxes a year are killed with hounds and 400,000 die by other means. It is characteristic of scientists to call for more science and I am sure Professor Webster will be doing that many times over the next four months to, shall I say, delay the process.
My response is that, in the limited number of post-mortems performed the findings were disguised by the fact that the fox subsequently spent some time being mouthed by the dogs, so evidence must be extracted from the confusing pitch that results from that. The critical question is - in the first few seconds, which part of the fox is likely to be the target for the dog? My suspicion, from my post-mortem findings carried out at Bristol University, and from observations of video, is that hounds will catch the first part of the fox that becomes available. That may be the foot, it may be a hind-quarter or it may be the thorax. It is rarely the neck. The fox, of course, is an intelligent creature. If it is the thorax the heart will be damaged, the lungs will be damaged and vital organs will be compromised. In comparison to perhaps shooting, or if we talk theoretically, it is the uncontrolled nature of this that is in question, really.
MR OPIK: Can I ask further question, obviously there are differences in view, would you accept that there are differences of opinion on this, but if it was the case that in large numbers the foxes could be seen to die like this it would probably be quite fast. The other question I was going to ask is about shooting.
DR BUTTERWORTH: You have made a statement without allowing me to answer.
MR OPIK: That is the first question I have. The second question is when you said in your presentation - which was very helpful - that 93 per cent of foxes died immediately, we heard in an earlier session from another witness that immediately could actually mean one to two minutes if it was a bullet through the head, what is your view on that?
DR BUTTERWORTH: The figures you saw were not related to the fox, it related to impala. There are three possible sites for effectively, and rather rapidly, killing a large herbivore, it could be anything, a sheep, a deer or a moose. You have to ‘take out’ three possible organs. You have to ‘take out’ the brain, so that would be a head shot; you have to severe the spinal cord, and that would be a high neck shot; or destroy the heart, so that would be a chest shot.
If a competent marksman is able to place a bullet in any of those locations the animal is very unlikely to live. The slide shown presented a finding that, in that study, all animals had died. The mean time for death after a wounding incident, i.e. not an immediate killing incident, was 30 seconds, that was a mean time so there will be some spread, of course.. One of the arguments against whaling has been that the variability from the moment of impact of the harpoon to the death of the animal is of welfare interest. It is so unpredictable. In a large percentage of the animals it would be rapid, in some it may be up to an hour and it is the predictability that is an issue because to understand what it means to the animal we need to understand the intensity and duration of suffering. We do not know enough about that yet in terms of the hunted fox.
MR JACKSON: In the pursuit of suffering, which is what this session is about, we would like the panel to discuss what plainly comes out of Dr Wise's evidence as a clear assertion that death by hunting is actually preferable to other forms of culling, first for the animal and, secondly, for the humans. We would like to hear that discussed, also including the question of the chase, the question of fear in the course of the chase that Professor Morton referred to in the first session this morning?
DR WISE: First I think I would agree that, as the Scott Henderson Committee did in 1951, hunting was to be preferred to shooting as a means of control of foxes. I do not know quite what has changed in the last 50 years except - and I am being slightly mysterious here - it was the development of the animal welfare professions. Coming to that were a lot of ecologists and they set a great storm by studying animal behaviour and drawing inferences from that behaviour, this is known as an argument from analogy. Recently, probably in the last five or six years, the pendulum has begun to swing enormously back in the other direction, in fact the very fact that an animal may show mental behaviour may not indicate that he is feeling anything to do with that behaviour, an animal does not have to feel frightened to run away, it has a sensation which is implicit and it will start to run away before its brain can consciously tell it, it is doing so, you can measure the speed of neurological signals. I am not saying they do not feel, I am saying it is possible to behave as if you are feeling fear without showing any fear.
People who have recently studied human brains and comparing them with animal brains many of them have come to the conclusion that possibly animals cannot suffer at all. As a vet I find that quite offensive. These are people on the fringes but nevertheless well respected. Other people like Joseph Nadu and possibly Edmund Rolls from Oxford are the foremost authorities on the emotional brain and believe most certainly the relationship between brain complexity and the ability to suffer or behave conscious.
I personally think this is fundamental to the whole debate. We do know that, for example, chimpanzees may be much more advanced than monkeys and basically non-primate, but we are a very, very long way behind. Professor Gould, who is another expert on this area, suggests that the difference is one of degree but it is so great it becomes one of a kind. I do not know what this means, but Professor Damasio(?) and lots of these people think that animals have a degree of consciousness that puts them firmly in the present. It is possible that they have sensory consciousness but possibly a poorly developed sense of emotional consequence which means that one should put greater weight to pain in the form of suffer and malaise or anything that the animal feels from its sensory consciousness than anything like fear, which might spring ultimately, other than raw fear and a sense of feeling of your own adrenal responses, this is probably not available to them.
PROFESSOR STEPHEN HARRIS: I understood the question, if I got this right, was that Dr Wise has said animals prefer to be hunted than shot. I do not understand why he said that and I still do not understand it from what he says. Have I got the question wrong?
MR JACKSON: No
PROFESSOR STEPHEN HARRIS: Perhaps he can explain to us if animals prefer to be hunted than shot, why is it better for the animals than the people. I do not understand where the question comes from.
DR WISE: Would you like me to clarify?
PROFESSOR STEPHEN HARRIS: Does anybody else or is it just me being thick?
THE CHAIRMAN: Let us see if Dr Wise can clarify.
DR WISE: I suppose I can sympathise with Professor Harris because I did not put the other side of the case. I do not accept being shot, which is the alternative, is necessarily going to be suffering free, there is a high probability of wounding. As a vet I am more concerned with what I call serious or unacceptable suffering. We all suffer a degree which I find acceptable.
I think one thing that ought to be got straight over this wounding argument in a sense is that we have talked about deer stalking, and that sort of thing, that there is a low level of wounding which means they recover most of the animals shot.
The Bateson figures in his original report here were that five per cent escape wounded and a further 11 per cent required a second shot and they have lived up to 15 minutes, or more. I think probably not more in that case. I think that we subsequently revised those figures downwards without, as far as I can see, having any further data. Nevertheless, I think that Patrick Bateson would say that being shot does not hurt because there is episodic analgesia in 70 per cent of cases for the first few minutes. That may well be the case. I think I gave evidence to Burns that said there is quite good evidence that analgesia applies to people being eaten by lions and presumably foxes being killed by hounds, that there is no initial pain in most cases but one cannot generalise. Nevertheless, I think I would not want the risk of being shot.
The same answer I give to Dr Butterworth who said, why should you not just turn up and shoot a deer rather than to hunt it first. There may be very good reasons for that, probably the first reason is there would be less deer so they would be less well tolerated. Secondly, the deer would be chronically stressed due to stalking and become nocturnal, the nocturnal behaviour of the hunted deer is far more typical than that which you have in an uncoordinated stalked, whereby area the animals are in much smaller groups and behave nocturnally. Thirdly, I do not see there is any difference in the humanity. Fourthly, there is great social value, recreational value, economic value and, social confusion in the neighbourhood. There are a lot of reasons not to shoot the thing. I would prefer to hunt it.
THE CHAIRMAN: We are running out of time. We will continue with the same panel in the afternoon. I am finding it a little difficult getting the responses to the question, then the answer to evidence. I think it would be helpful if in making statements each of our panellists could, where possible, point to the evidence they are referring to, even if it is only a quick reference, so we can follow up afterwards. I am putting that more as a consideration for the after lunch session.
DR BUTTERWORTH: In brief, my point was that in deer hunting, it is quite common, although not always the case, to identify a target animal. The original question that prompted that was about whether we are allowing evolution, or are we interfering with evolution. I think we are very much interfering with evolution. If somebody identifies a target animal, or animals, then walks away and they wait until the next day or a subsequent time when the hunt starts and are focusing on this targeted animal the animal is ‘identified’, whether we shoot it or whether it is hunted. Some would say that to subject an animal who is ‘identified’ as having a disability, or an injury or something of this nature to be the one that we subject to a prolonged chase is rubbing salt in its particular wound. That is another issue.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. To a degree this is a topic we are going to return to after lunch. Can I ask people to be back here promptly at 2 o'clock. This is not the end of the session, this is a the break in the session and we will return to this point after lunch.
THE CHAIRMAN: Perhaps we can make a start. At the end of the session before lunch we had not quite rounded off tidily on the question, John, that you had posed to the panel, which was relating really to physical suffering and mental suffering. I am keen to make sure that we focus on the topic of this particular session which is looking for methods that cause the least suffering in controlling the specific quarry species. I wonder if, in doing what I said I would do, which is giving an option for other members of the panel to comment and to round up in response to John's question, I can remind you that that is the topic we were discussing, and see what people would like to say.
MR JACKSON: Sir, would it be helpful if I remind them what the question was? Would that help?
THE CHAIRMAN: I hope it would be helpful!
MR JACKSON: The question - because this is really about least suffering - that I was putting to the panel was for them to comment on what came out of Douglas Wise's evidence that, in his view, death by hunting was actually preferable to other forms of culling, firstly for the animal and secondly for the human. I had asked that to be discussed taking into account the evidence that we heard earlier today about what happens in the chase and the question of fear.
THE CHAIRMAN: I wonder if it would be helpful perhaps if I just gave each member of the panel who has commented on this an opportunity to comment, then move on to the next question. Stephen?
PROFESSOR STEPHEN HARRIS: I will start. I did remember the question actually, because if you will remember, I actually asked for clarification of Douglas Wise on his argument. I said at the end of it that I did not actually see any sense in his arguments. I think you asked for evidence and for facts, not for an assertion on something. I think perhaps an example of that would be that if you start shooting deer they become somewhat secretive. I told you yesterday that there was a study where they are shot and there is absolutely no evidence that they become secretive, you see them in the middle of the day quite frequently. So I think it is just an assertion, and I think that what you want is a reasoned response to it, to giving an assertion.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. I make no comment on that. Roger Harris.
PROFESSOR ROGER HARRIS: In our study we actually spent quite a long time thinking about how long towards the end of hunting that deer would be finding it more difficult to maintain pace and keep ahead of the encroaching hounds. This became really a bone of contention between the two studies and is still unresolved. We felt that based upon analogy and experience of other species, really you are looking at a period round about 20 minutes towards the end of hunting as a period when deer would be at risk of suffering to a greater extent than they had right up to that point. I think Professor Bateson has come out with a slightly longer figure of 30 minutes. The simple fact is that we have physiological data between us which allows us to see what is happening as that point is approached, but we do not really understand how that relates to the individual deer itself. We need much more in the way of behavioural observations to complement the physiological measurements. Although there has been mention of observations being made, in fact this is based on small numbers per deer, and what we do need is to complement very much the physiological studies at this point before a sensible decision can be made.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. Professor Webster.
PROFESSOR WEBSTER: Really this is saying nothing I have not said before, that one has to make a distinction between the majority of the hunts by any predator where the quarry species expects to escape and is under stress but not suffering, and the duration of the period when it senses, it perceives, it cannot go. In the case of hare and foxes the evidence is that that period is very short. On the evidence of deer hunting as currently practised, my view is that that period is unnecessarily long.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Dr Butterworth, did you want to add anything to what you commented on before lunch?
DR BUTTERWORTH: Very briefly. I think this is fundamentally about perception. We do not release packs of hounds to trace down feral dogs. If we did, I suspect the RSPCA would be able to make a prosecution in that case. That is my comment.
PROFESSOR STEPHEN HARRIS: I will just come back to the question again about proof. John Rolls is saying that the evidence is that the period of stress for foxes and hares is very low. I just have not seen what that evidence is. We should have that evidence. The simple truth is that actually there is no available evidence about this at all now available. The published data does not say how they are hunted by predators. How most predators work in the wild is very simple: they rely on getting close to the prey animals to ensure they catch them. Most predators do not go for prolonged chases. That is true for foxes and hares. They do not get a long distance. So I am not sure where these data came from and I am not sure what the evidence is for saying this.
DR WISE: I refute making an assertion. I was using evidence from Langbein which is a study of deer in the West Country, and in so far as wolves will actually pursue hares for quite long distances. We have evidence for that as well. We will submit it, if you wish. I do not have it with me.
THE CHAIRMAN: I think that is helpful. As I indicated, if the questioning raises issues where people can point to evidence they can provide for us afterwards, I will obviously make sure that anything is circulated, and that would be helpful.
MR ROLLS: To the panel, we note the findings of the Burns Report that the most efficient and humane method of controlling foxes, if and/or where it is ever necessary to kill a fox - the most humane way of doing it - is to shoot it with a rifle. Would the panel therefore agree that lamping and shooting with a rifle is the most humane method of dealing with foxes, should they ever become a nuisance?
THE CHAIRMAN: It is a clear question. Can I ask people to be fairly succinct in their responses? We will start with Stephen Harris.
PROFESSOR STEPHEN HARRIS: As I said in my evidence in my preliminary talk, that is clearly the most humane way to do it, and it is also an extremely effective way of dealing with foxes and keeping them under control, so it is easily the best way of doing it, but I would submit to you that in the right hands a shotgun with the right cartridges is pretty effective too.
DR WISE: I think "when well conducted" is what Lord Burns said, yes. When well conducted, clearly it is probably effective. It is not effective as a way of protecting ground-nesting gamebirds and that sort of thing, because most foxes are shot in the autumn post-harvest when it is most practical to shoot - not invariably, you can shoot at other times - but most foxes shot by lamping are foxes that are dispersing through the night.
MR ROLLS: So you would agree with the point that the most humane method of dealing with rogue fox is lamping, using a lamp for bait?
DR WISE: I would agree if well conducted, and basically Macdonald said there was no convincing data about dealing with that.
PROFESSOR ROGER HARRIS: I really do not have any comment.
PROFESSOR WEBSTER: Very briefly, it is obviously a humane method where appropriate, and as part of the pursuit of least suffering I am sure it has a part to play.
DR BUTTERWORTH: It is actually the most common method at the present time and therefore probably does not need a demonstration of efficacy now.
MR ROLLS: May I ask a supplementary on how that would compare to the use of gun packs?
PROFESSOR STEPHEN HARRIS: As I think I said in my preliminary talk, gun packs have a very high wounding rate, and I find it very hard to see any justification for the pain and suffering of foxes, and also from the data which was presented yesterday it is hard to see a justification for the use of gun packs.
DR WISE: Clearly that was not the impression arrived at by the Scottish Parliament that gun packs are an efficient and effective way of controlling foxes. Professor Harris does not believe we should control foxes, but certainly if you use gun packs in the absence of follow-up terriers and hounds, in gun packs hounds chop foxes, they also chop above ground wounded foxes, and clearly any foxes below ground have been wounded, but certainly the whole process is reasonably quick. It is less humane than you would get with recreational hunting, but it is probably comparable to other pest-control methods of killing.
PROFESSOR STEPHEN HARRIS: Could I just say one thing? I have been told that I do not believe in the control of foxes. I have never actually said that. What I have actually said is that I have no evidence that widespread fox control works, and where you have a problem you can control the foxes causing the problem. I think that is different.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you for that clarification.
MR ROLLS: I have just one other point, and that is to do with the so-called quick nip to the back of the neck. We have heard evidence from Dr Butterworth that he had post-mortemed something like 19 foxes. No?
DR BUTTERWORTH: No, I was responsible really for the organisation of post-morteming only four foxes. In total, about 17 foxes have been sent in for reporting - 17 foxes from a cross-section of different organisations. My only comment on that is that that is a fantastic lack of science in the face of the numbers of foxes that are killed.
MR ROLLS: But do any of them demonstrate that the quick nip to the back of the neck is effective?
DR BUTTERWORTH: I have not seen, for instance, radiographic evidence of a quick nip to the neck. On the 13 post-mortems that were not carried out by my team, there was no evidence of that quick nip to the neck in the two foxes that were killed.
MR ROLLS: As far as you know there is no published evidence to demonstrate that a quick nip to the back of the neck is actually an effective way of killing foxes?
DR BUTTERWORTH: Well published evidence ranges from the Sunday Sport to a veterinary journal, but I suspect that really the content of the veterinary journal is more reliable.
MR ROLLS: So you would say there is no reputable data that would confirm that assertion?
DR BUTTERWORTH: Not as far as I am aware.
THE CHAIRMAN: Do any of our other experts want to add anything to that before we move on?
DR WISE: A quick word, but basically I think a lot of people believe it is extremely quick, so in some respects it is immaterial. But it is probably quicker than a rifle, the time from insensibility to death from a rifle shot, so why are you worrying about specifically picking on this issue?
THE CHAIRMAN: With the greatest of respect, before you respond, the question is a rhetorical question. Stephen Harris.
PROFESSOR STEPHEN HARRIS: It is one of those things we keep hearing stories about - that dogs kill by a nip to the back of the neck. They do it particularly when the prey is smaller than them and they do not do it when the prey is bigger than them. Perhaps I could just give you two examples of that. I think Dr Butterworth said, quite rightly and quite clearly, that the idea that a prey is running away from dogs and when it catches up with that all the dog does is is it gets hold of it, the first thing he can manage to get hold of, and it invariably is the back of the neck of the animal. It has not got anything to get hold of, so it gets hold of it and does what damage it can and generally holds on. So if you are looking at a single animal involved, and that very often is the case with lurchers, then, yes, the time of death can be extremely long. Is there a good example of that? We see the examples of that when we see organized coursing being held. When a dog does catch a hare, it gets hold of it, it does not let go and the logic of the whole process is there are stewards there who are meant to go and rescue that hare and finish it off. If it is a quick nip to the back of the neck, as we are told, then you would not need stewards at these events to deal with these animals, so clearly it is not so.
Perhaps the other example I might suggest to you, Minister, which you might actually see evidence for, is that when dogs attack children it is quite clear what happens and it is just the same thing that happens whether it is a big dog attacking a small child or a small dog attacking a big child, or one dog or several dogs. They do not rush round and give the child a uniform bite at the back of the neck. What they do is they rush in and grab the child, and you have seen photos of children with extensive lacerations. Often the worst cases are perhaps hundreds of stitches, and even with a big dog attacking a small child the attack can go on for a long time, that child is still alive, and that is the normal practice.
You can have extreme cases where you have got a pack of dogs attacking a fox, and if there are several dogs, they are quick, it may be a short period before that fox is killed. In ones I have seen where a single hound has caught up with a fox, it can be a very extended thing altogether, and the normal process is that the hound grabs it by the neck, starts shaking it, and that can be to any bit of the body.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
BARONESS GOLDING: Can we come back to the question of the effectiveness of traps? Obviously whether you use traps or whether you hunt, there are disadvantages. The disadvantage of hunting is that there would be some temporary disturbance of the habitat. The disadvantage of using cages is that you have to bait them every day and you have to kill something to bait them, like a small chicken, and obviously you have a disadvantage if you drown mink on an estuary.
Can I ask if there is any evidence of the effectiveness of traps, or are there any numbers of mink that have been caught in traps or any other numbers of non-targeted species that have been caught in traps in respect of mink?
THE CHAIRMAN: Would anybody like to start?
PROFESSOR STEPHEN HARRIS: Shall I start if no one else wants to start? There are several questions there. The question effectively I think we have already dealt with yesterday, the data actually being the data produced by the Environment Agency and English Nature showing that if you trap early in the year it is extremely effective, leading quite quickly to humane capture. I quoted yesterday from that handbook. If you capture at that time of the year, then you have got a clear period between the spring and summer before the colonisations later in the year. So in terms of actually trying to minimise the impact on species conservation, that is what they say, that is what they published, and I have quoted from them. Obviously, you can catch a non-targeted species. There may be some data on the catching of non-targeted species, but I am not sure I actually have those data to hand. I am sure we can find it, but I am not sure what the issue with non-targeted species is, because they are more releasable.
THE CHAIRMAN: Right, shall we run down the panel.
DR WISE: Other people use killing traps. Obviously they are not all fox traps. The Environment Agency may not be the best people to have knowledge on the subject, even if they are complaining about disturbance on riverbanks. Every year on the riverbanks that I own they come down with cutters, there is no vegetation, it is being cannibalized. So if they are worrying about temporary disturbance with hounds, they are hypocritical in the extreme!
THE CHAIRMAN: Would any of the others like to add anything? Dr Butterworth?
DR BUTTERWORTH: Only really to paraphrase what the Burns Report says, which is is that mink are not trap shy, so as a methodology it is certainly possible, trapping can be efficient and the success depends on the time of the year. There is no comment on the welfare aspects of trapping.
DR WISE: 170 hours per set trap is meant to catch a mink. Is it 170 hours, I am sorry?
THE CHAIRMAN: I am sorry, you are giving the evidence.
DR WISE: The point I will get to is that the probability of those traps being visited every day is remote in the real world.
THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, I see.
BARONESS GOLDING: Could I just come back on the question saying that mink are not trap shy. In fact, female mink are trap shy and the world expert, Professor Hurstensen(?), in all his experiments says female mink are very trap shy.
DR BUTTERWORTH: Thank you. I paraphrased from the Burns Report. I have no experience.
MR JACKSON: Simon Hart has got a question, and there will be a short supplemental.
MR HART: Minister, to the panel completely, in your view is more research needed into physiology or psychology of animals?
THE CHAIRMAN: Do you want the supplemental now?
MR JACKSON: No, no, I will wait for the answer.
DR BUTTERWORTH: As a scientist, it is lovely to be able to say more research is always needed and, in fact, in the real world more research is always needed but, in fact, whether that is a viable reason for delaying any further process, I cannot really comment on.
MR HART: Can you not really?
DR BUTTERWORTH: I cannot really comment on whether there is sufficient evidence here. Really, that is for all of us to decide. Of course, in any walk of life, to know more would be fantastic.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
PROFESSOR WEBSTER: Yes, but I would caution against more laboratory-based research involving measurements of hormones and things of this nature, because I think they tend to reinforce our prejudices. The information we require is information of a very simple nature in relation to the duration of the chase, the wounding numbers, recovery numbers. It is this information that can be gathered in the field rather than in the laboratory, and I think that it should be. If there is a continuation of the hunting process, that should be a responsibility for the hunting community to carry out.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
PROFESSOR ROGER HARRIS: Quite simply, I would go along with the last comment, that we do not need an emphasis any further on laboratory or pure physiology findings. The two studies that were done in respect of deer have provided the information that was required, and that has given a good solid account of what goes on during hunting. The problem is that they were incomplete studies. We do not know about the key issue of what happens to deer which escape, and there is a lot of speculation and a lot of opinion, but there is little fact involved. We do not know how the behaviour ties in at all with the physiology. That is absolutely crucial to a proper interpretation of what is happening during the hunting. Those sorts of observations have not been made and there is really a desperate need for that. It is always, to me, very surprising that in the space of four years - these two promising studies have not been followed up with further work, and as we sit in this meeting, that a lot of what we hear is largely conjecture and opinion and not based upon solid fact. It is very unfortunate that that period has been lost.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
DR WISE: I do not know if I can allude to this, Minister, but Patrick Bateson has very kindly sent me the submission that he sent to you, because I have been in protracted correspondence with him on the interpretation on the deerhunting scientific exercise on physiology. Basically he is now of a view that -----
THE CHAIRMAN: Sorry, can I say that I think you can allude to it, but I would point out that if you are having a protracted debate, one half of the debate is here and the other is not, and I would look with great attention to what both said.
DR WISE: Fair enough.
THE CHAIRMAN: So within the context of today's session, by all means allude to him.
DR WISE: Well, he suggested that further research might be necessary. He says there is agreement between scientists that probably suffering might probably be deemed to start at the point of glycogen depletion, or the exhaustion of glycogen supply. Now, Professor Webster says this is exhaustion, but I think a layman should understand that running down of glycogen is sort of like running out of your jet fuel; there is still plenty of other fuel to carry on, but it is at a slow pace and if you try and go slow or if you lie down, you are not going to feel physical discomfort. I think Pat Bateson and I agree on that point. He believes that it occurs after 10 kilometres. I do not find that credible. He says that if further research is done, he would be very happy for you to see that, but by the same token he also suggested that a properly qualified group of people could look at that evidence. I would like to hear what Professor Roger Harris has to say on this subject, but I do not think it is plausible to suppose that animals could go on for as long as they do, if they were glycogen depleted. You cannot got at fast speeds if you are glycogen depleted, yet in Pat Bateson's own behaviour study he said that most deer were still going as fast at the end as they were at the beginning. Now that is not consistent with glycogen depletion having occurred at an earlier stage.
The other thing here is that on the analysis that I have made myself of Roger Harris's own biochemical data, 21 out of 30 deer at the time they were killed either were recorded as having been travelling very fast immediately before they were killed, they had high lactic acid levels, high temperatures and high blood sugar levels, all of which would have militated against the possibility of there having been prior glycogen depletion.
PROFESSOR STEPHEN HARRIS: Well, I guess this is a standard response of scientists. We could always know more and we could always learn more, but I am not sure that we need to in this case. In fact, I d not think we will. I think the issues are very clear and there are many other parallel situations. We have made that decision. For instance, if I, as a scientist, wanted to study the suffering induced on foxes during the hunt, as part of a scientific study, I would have to have a licence to do it. That decision has always been made on the basis of what we are going to do. If I go to my university ethics committee and say, "I would like to do this to a fox, " then the answer is, "Sorry, you can't do it," so the situation is I cannot do it on Monday to Saturday while I am doing my university business, but I can do it on Sunday as a recreational activity. I think in many of these situations a value judgement has been made, and I am not quite sure why we need more data to apply the same value judgement that we have already made to the same species in other situations or to other species. We have already made a value judgement that setting a dog on a badger underground is not acceptable, and we did that without scientific data. There is no reason, absolutely no basis, for saying that setting a dog on a fox underground is any more acceptable. What I think we need to achieve now is comparability for all species and comparability in that due process.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Your supplemental?
MR. LISSACK: Thank you, Minister. Do the panel agree that all methods of control of all quarry species should be subject to the same test of cruelty?
THE CHAIRMAN: Shall we go in reverse order?
PROFESSOR STEPHEN HARRIS: I am not sure I quite understand what the question is, because I am not quite sure how you can apply one test to a lot of different activities, therefore I am not quite sure what the test is. If people apply a test and apply it effectively to a variety of different activities, across a variety of different species, then I think we can assess it, but I do not see what that test would be.
DR WISE: Professor Bateson has come up with something called welfare equation in which it is not a precise and scientific thing to do, but it is something which can be attempted and it leads to balancing things up.
PROFESSOR ROGER HARRIS: I really would not like to comment on that. I think it is an extremely difficult question.
PROFESSOR WEBSTER: Since I said at the outset that I believe that the question of welfare, cruelty and suffering should be defined by the animal sentience rather than its utility or otherwise to Man, the answer must be an unequivocal yes.
DR BUTTERWORTH: Unfortunately, what I am going to do now is make John Webster say something else, because he claims to have drafted five freedoms, the five freedoms which are kind of the core of the early animal welfare movement, particularly in respect to farmed species, but are applicable to all species. One of the five freedoms is freedom from fear and distress. You can phrase it in lots of different ways, but that is fundamentally what it means. So this is an existing test which we apply to all sorts of species. We apply it, as Steve Harris said, in ASPA, the Animal (Scientific Procedures) Act, in deciding whether a rat should be subjected to neurophysiology cost versus benefit. We apply it in farm species when deciding how many animals per square metre we can have in a farm shed; cost versus benefit is a test. I would really very much like to defer whether this test would be applicable in this circumstance to its originator. Back to you.
PROFESSOR WEBSTER: Do I answer this?
THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
PROFESSOR WEBSTER: The aim should be to ensure least suffering. Five freedoms are ideal as the paradigms to which one should aspire, but in fact are impossible. We are really considering alternative methods of killing. The concept of killing farm animals is that the animal should be rendered instantaneously insensible to pain until death ensues. That is all right up to a point, but if you get that animal to that point in the day or longer prior to its arrival at the shooting point, it has experienced the suffering of transport and slaughter and then, on balance, that is not a least-suffering option. I would remind several people that when the Farm Animal Welfare Council put out its deer report there was a minority report from Ruth Harrison, who is the mother of animal welfare, who said it would be more humane to kill deer in the field than it would be to transport them to the slaughterhouse.
THE CHAIRMAN: So your answer seems to be that you seek to apply the same principle, at least to do it instantaneously?
PROFESSOR WEBSTER: Yes. The least suffering.
THE CHAIRMAN: But it is more complicated than that?
PROFESSOR WEBSTER: It is more complicated, but the principle must be least suffering at the point of death and immediately in that period prior to death.
MR JACKSON: Could I ask a very brief supplementary or not?
THE CHAIRMAN: No, I think we will come back to this. Let me try to be fair to everybody.
DR LINDLEY: I would like to get back to this question of wounding rates, because I think that is fairly central to the question of least suffering. Perhaps I may just put one or two short questions to try to clarify different aspects of the same issue, because there are a number of issues out there.
One perhaps fairly quick question is, I wonder if Professor Webster could clarify the relevance of the 20 per cent figure which he quoted in his paper and his presentation, which is actually not 20 per cent of animals culled as a wounding rate, but 20 per cent of the casualty animals picked up by the hunt had evidence of wounding. What is the impact, and how does that relate, for instance, to the estimated 4« per cent wounding rate?
PROFESSOR WEBSTER: I can probably say that that actually relates to my paper 2c which was done on deer stalking, but the evidence is a quotation from the Macdonald Report which does not make it clear, actually as written, that it did relate to animals where essentially the decision had been taken to cull them for humane purposes. The simple answer is, nobody really knows what the number is. I will leave it at that.
DR LINDLEY: Then on a more general question, a number of statements have been made that there is very little evidence. We have had a number of references to Professor Bateson's studies, but I wonder if the members of the panel would like, in addition to the Bateson evidence, to comment on two other sets of data which I am sure they will be aware of. One is that Dr Wise referred to Dr Langbein's study which was jointly funded by the conservation and hunting statutory bodies, where he analysed over 1,000 carcases from game dealers and found that, depending on how they were looked at, between 0.6 and 1.8 per cent showed evidence of rifle or shot wounds; and another data set which is in the same Macdonald paper that Professor Webster referred to, which is about nearly 5,000 animals culled by the Ministry of Defence, British Deer Society members, where less than 2 per cent showed that evidence, that were not killed instantly. So there are two additional data sets, which I am sure the panel members are aware of, which I do not think have been perhaps properly discussed. So I think our feeling is - and I would put it to the panel - that those additional data actually just confirm what Professor Bateson said in his report to Burns that his own study was perfectly clear-cut and scientific, and the alternative to hunting of shooting red deer produces on average a much lower level of individual suffering.
THE CHAIRMAN: I think that was a fairly lengthy question. I am keen to ask people to be more disciplined in their questions. You referred to two pieces of research. Can I just remind people that we are talking about the method that causes the least suffering. So rather than going into great detail, could you indicate your view of that research and the conclusion that should be drawn from it? I think that is the essential point.
PROFESSOR STEPHEN HARRIS: I just go back to what I said in my opening statement. I was quoting the actual evidence that Macdonald and Bateson published in 2000. They say that 2 per cent of deer escape wounded and they say that ultimately - the quote I had - they saw that the outcome of the equation was much more in favour of stalking than hunting, and that also it was much more feasible to reduce the welfare costs associated with stalking than it was hunting. I think all the evidence points in that direction.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Dr Wise?
DR WISE: In respect of the two studies, Minister, on the first one, I believe it said there was1.8 per cent, was there not, of the level of wounding, of the Langbein?
DR LINDLEY: 0.6 to 1.8 per cent.
DR WISE: Okay. You would have to be shot as a deer, recover, get better and allow yourself to be shot again for that figure to mean anything, so those animals would have been shot twice. The chance of an animal that has been shot necessarily getting better and showing evidence of having been previously shot is not a good measure of wounding rate. The MoD study, as I understand , was based on volunteer returns. There was no compulsion for people to fill in their cards, and when they made a mess of it they did not fill them in.
As far as the point you gave from Bateson goes, Patrick Bateson himself has said that the Bateson Report was concerned with the welfare of deer culled either with the use of hounds or by rifle. Unfortunately, precision may never be given to calculations of the frequency and duration of welfare cost to individual animals resulting from the two different methods of culling. So he is not currently claiming that there is a huge difference between those two methods. He may have done at one stage.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Professor Roger Harris.
PROFESSOR ROGER HARRIS: The only thing I can add to that is that when we were doing our own particular study, it was driven home to us the difficulty in fact of shooting, in an area like Exmoor and the Quantock Hills. Even within different parts of those areas it is difficult. We observed in our very small data set quite an alarming wounding rate and one particular instance, as you probably know from of our report, of a deer which escaped and survived for quite a period afterwards. Again, I think that you need to have proper statistics based upon fairly large numbers of observations in the areas on which you are in fact trying to comment. I think every area is individual. I am not quite sure that you can transfer observations made in one area to another, because of the practical difficulties.
PROFESSOR WEBSTER: Very briefly, the only new thing I could say is that in attempting to go for the optimal welfare equation one cannot consider just the average, one must consider the small number of animals who suffer for a very long time, and that is more likely to happen with shooting than with hunting with dogs.
DR BUTTERWORTH: My experience is that in practice it is quite common to get called to deer who have been hit by cars, and it was also not uncommon to be called to see deer that had been hit by cars at some earlier stage and were still perambulating around, but obviously disabled, and somebody had identified them as a problem and wanted somebody to look at them. I would suggest that 2 per cent wounded and escaped rate would compare numerically very favourably with the number of deer wounded and still at large with relation to car accidents. I know that killing with cars is not a conscious culling effort of deer, but in terms of creating wounded animals in the environment it is a very small percentage that are likely to escape from shooting, it is likely to be fairly small.
PROFESSOR STEPHEN HARRIS: If I could make a point before you move on, it is just that the statement that was read by Dr Wise in relation to Professor Bateson had been written in a report in 1997, and so the lessons that have been learnt reveal Professor Bateson's current view. It should be remembered, what we were quoting from was published data from Bateson in 2000 where he has actually done some more work on the issue, so that is what he said most recently and that is what his views currently appear to be.
THE CHAIRMAN: You perhaps need to comment on the two references, and that would make it clear. Peter?
MR LUFF: I hoped we would get the answers to two questions this afternoon - two quite simple questions - and the answers to those questions seem to be elusive. We have gone through this a bit before, but I want to try to pin it down. Is there any way you can give answers to these questions? Parliament must decide on the facts, and the facts in this issue seem to be in dispute, relating to the death of foxes, two specific issues on the death of foxes. First of all, the question of how quick the death is in hunting. Dr Butterworth has expressed some views which conflict very sharply with the views of the Hafren Veterinary Group, Ian Jones who is in Wales, who gave evidence on hunting. He conducted three postmortems in considerable detail and concluded - I shall read the crucial bits, but this seemed to be an accurate reflection on them - "In my view, each of these three foxes died as a result of a powerful bite to the chest" - not, incidentally, the neck, the chest - "over the heart or posterior chest anterior abdomen. The degree of trauma caused by the bites is so enormous as to result in an instantaneous death." He adds: "None of the foxes appears to have gasped after the fatal bite was delivered, as there was no bloodstained fluid or froth within the trachea. Consistent with damage to the lung tissue, there should have been such material in the trachea had the foxes tried to breathe." This seems to be powerful evidence that they were killed very, very quickly. How can we resolve this dispute? Is it possible? Because I need to know.
DR BUTTERWORTH: Since that is being fundamentally directed to me, I think we can put to bed probably, based on the postmortems that we have so far, which are a very small sample, the concept of a quick nip to the neck. Can we agree on that?
MR LUFF: I am inclined to agree, but we have not got the evidence, I think.
DR BUTTERWORTH: When it comes to the question of thoracic bite as a means of killing an animal, a fox weighs about 5 to 7 kilograms and its chest is of the order of this (indicating) diameter. A hound weighs about 20 to 25 kilograms and its mouth is about this (indicating) by analogy. It is impossible that a hound could put its mouth almost all the way round the fox, there is no disputing that, but would one single bite from a hound - and this is what is under debate here - be sufficient grossly to destroy, fundamentally to destroy, the functioning of the heart? It certainly would not be capable of destroying all the lung tissue in one bite, but well placed I have no doubt that the perfect hound could kill the ideal fox in one bite, but the reality is probably likely to be more that the fox is running, the hound is running, the hound takes a preliminary bite, it takes another bite, it repositions, it takes another bite, a couple of hounds come in and have another bite. So the process is unlikely to be clinical. The process is likely - and I would suggest that the evidence supports this as well - to take some time as a minimum. Instantaneous is never achievable. Even animals killed in a slaughterhouse are not killed instantaneously. Instantaneous is a zero element of time. Immediate is what we would like to aim for in slaughtering farm species, and for them that means something like 300 milliseconds from the moment you press the trigger on the cattle bolt to the moment the animal's world goes back. So if we assume that is about 300 milliseconds, and we say that the fox is bitten on the chest, what is going to kill the fox? The heart would not. He would not die because of a heart attack, he would die because his brain is robbed of oxygen, and that would take some time, whereas if I have shot him in the head his brain would immediately be denied oxygen. So there are issues here we cannot finally decide, but the evidence suggests that the mechanism of a single bite to the chest is not going to be very, very short, it is going to be quite short.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. Professor Webster?
PROFESSOR WEBSTER: I have a terrible sense of d‚ja vue about this. We have been asked the same question time and time again. Essentially there is no zero suffering method in anything, including humane slaughter, except possibly by intravenous injection. We are concerned about the duration of the period of suffering from fear and pain. It is my belief that in foxhunting the duration is short, is not significantly longer than many cases of shooting, and on that equation I do not think one is better than the other, I think they are about equal. As a way of dying, the duration of suffering is less than most of the other forms of natural death. It is not a moral position, it is just a statement.
DR WISE: It is quick and it is probably covered by episodic analgesia, but it may not be. It is so quick. I agree with Professor Webster.
PROFESSOR STEPHEN HARRIS: I am inclined to say that I support Dr Butterworth. I think that what he said is only fair, and there is a logic in what he said. I think it is partly the way that hound gets there first and gets hold of that animal. If he gets hold of his chest it is hard to see that there is going to be an immediate death. The other factor to bear in mind is that I think the figures Dr Butterworth gave mean that if you are hunting with a pack of hounds, with a swarm of dogs, it is probably harder for you, it just depends on the kind of hunting on the day. I guess another issue you have to remember is that we can argue over this as far as foxhunting goes, but the majority of foxes are actually dug out, and there is a very different situation, but perhaps that is your next question.
MR LUFF: No, it is not actually. The second question was actually to confront the issue of wounding rates. My prejudice, I think - and I am not saying whether my prejudice is right or wrong - is that shooting probably is worse for animal welfare than hunting, but I could be wrong. I just cannot get the evidence on wounding rates. Is it actually possible to get definitive evidence on wounding rates? Is it actually an impossible scientific challenge? Surely at present the allegation - this is supposition - is that a lot of foxes that are shot and wounded are subsequently caught by hunts, and by the nature of their disposal their wounds cannot be found. Also - I turn to Stephen Harris for this - in the wider sense, reading this paper from the League Against Cruel Sports, it says that any sick or injured foxes tend to crawl away and die under cover, so their corpses are never found. So do these two factors, one of which is my conjecture and one of which is Stephen Harris's academic opinion, mean it is actually impossible to get wounding rate data, or could we get some wounding data? I would really like to have it.
THE CHAIRMAN: You do this in the context of questions, Peter. I wonder if we could ask people, through the panel, fairly quickly to comment on the difficulty or otherwise of getting dependable facts on wounding rates; and secondly, what their understanding is that wounding rates involve, is that right?
MR LUFF: That would be very helpful.
PROFESSOR STEPHEN HARRIS: There are several issues there. Firstly, the statement you just read out. I think I can say that clearly a lot of animals are so injured that they are going to die, but obviously a lot of animals are wounded that are not going to die, therefore I guess it is the case that when you pick them up later and you know the cause they have died from, you can see how many are that more wounded. Given that equation, as far as we can see, that is remarkably low. It is very hard to say how many are physically wounded and do disappear from that system. I do not think that would be very easy to produce. I guess the only thing I can say is further to what I have said already. We have hundreds of foxes shot by rifles. I have yet to see one get away. I do not actually know that people shooting with rifles have seen them get away, but again that is from recollection. If they do, it is a very low number, so that is the best I can give you.
DR WISE: I would be very concerned about getting evidence from the information given to you by the person pulling the trigger. I would be very interested to know what the shots-to-kill ratio was. Obviously you are going to have sighting shots at targets and that sort of thing, but we are not counting those. For example, if a National Trust stalker has taken shots at deer, he has used 125 shots to kill 75 deer, as some people say - the various guidebooks, for example. The game witness made a submission to you, and he has said that is a reasonable return rate. One is interested then in the other 50 shots - where did they go? I suppose if you took a sort of ring round where they were aiming you would see which bits hit air and which bits hit non-lethal hits, but I would say that of those 50 shots a significant number would have passed through the animal rather than passed through the air around it, if you are aiming at a full-whack shot, which you are advised to do with deer. When it comes to night shooting, quite clearly if you miss, it might be very difficult indeed to know whether you missed or whether you hit it and it has run off. So I would accept to some extent what Professor Harris said, that if you have a heavy-calibre rifle and you hit it anywhere, you can knock down anything. A lot of people are out with rifles, and if they see a fox they will take a pot at it. The same thing does not obtain there.
PROFESSOR ROGER HARRIS: If there was the will to obtain that information, and if an independent observer was appointed to accompany just a number of shooters of both deer and foxes, you would be surprised at how quickly fairly reliable information could be obtained, but until that decision is made and until that study - if we can call it a study - is made, it is difficult to sift through what is correct and what is incorrect.
PROFESSOR WEBSTER: Very briefly, most relevant evidence as to welfare is the number of animals that have been going around wounded and the number of animals that appear to have got away. It is intended to be the business of the ISA monitoring supervising body, in reviewing the elements of humanity and utility in hunting, to seek such information. It would be equally appropriate for any other statutory body to seek the same information.
DR BUTTERWORTH: The issue of wounding is difficult in the sense that it would be very difficult in the wild arena, not in some artificially-created arena, to differentiate whether you had simply missed or whether you had hit and wounded. I personally cannot see any way in which a rigorous approach to that can be applied in fact and whether we should just accept that there will be a low level of wounding and escape. None of these systems is perfect, we must accept that. It is that low level. It would be nice to know that answer. We do have some publications on other species. The fox is the lacking species here.
PROFESSOR STEPHEN HARRIS: If I may just make a point very quickly, Minister, there is just one other point to bear in mind that with shooting foxes, particularly when you are shooting them with a rifle or shotgun, one of the standard techniques is to call them up. They are very easy to call to within a few yards of you. That is a standard way that you actually choose. So particularly with foxes they are often shooting at a standing target 10, 15, 20, 30 feet in front of them. That is the standard way of taking a fox and shooting at it.
MR LUFF: Did you ask for a second question?
THE CHAIRMAN: No, I asked, as we went through, for people to give their view on the basis of current information.
MR JACKSON: We would like what I call a tidying-up. Simon Hart has a couple of quick questions, and Richard Lissack would like to ask his follow-up question to what Professor Webster said a few minutes ago.
MR HART: Minister, can I ask a different question of three different panellists, just on a point of fact?
THE CHAIRMAN: You can, but if the other panellists want to add anything, they can do.
MR HART: Yes. Minister, I hope it is fairly straightforward, and it is purely to clear up on points which were made a bit earlier. Firstly to Roger Harris, whether you have a view. You expressed concern earlier on about further research being needed on deer that escape from hunting, and the damage, if any, that they might suffer once escaped. Did you look in any detail to the fact that most deer that escape from the hunt do so, certainly in my opinion, in the early stages of the hunt rather than the last 20 or 30 minutes? Do you have any figures or data on that particular point?
PROFESSOR ROGER HARRIS: It is a long time ago since this question was asked, and I have not checked on it recently. I believe that there were records of deer after quite long hunts which were lost, as well as deer from the early part of the hunt. The difficulty is knowing the pre-history. Hunts which are short may be physiologically more stressful than hunts which are of long duration, simply because hunts which are short may well go off at a faster speed, the hunt terrain itself may be more intense, may involve more upland terrain. It is very difficult to say that if a deer escapes after a short hunt it would be better off than a deer which escaped at the end of a long hunt. I cannot tell you now, as I sit here, from the records that we have.
THE CHAIRMAN: The easiest thing is if you ask your other two specific questions, then I will let the other panellists come in on any of those three.
MR HART: That is fine. My second other question was actually for Professor Stephen Harris, a two-parter. Firstly, you mentioned wounding rates in hares earlier on. What proportion of wounded hares do you estimate - or you might even have the data , who knows - were accounted for predation by foxes, maybe birds of prey or indeed hunting itself, and therefore did not feature in the rather low wounded rates that were referred to before? As part of the same question, you were talking about obviously the humane treatment of animals, and how you would suggest to overcome the problem of wounded animals, in particular foxes, and how you believe that, in the interests of humanity and welfare, they are better dealt with, perhaps with particular reference to your suggestion of the use of rifles, which raised a query over here?
My last question is for Dr Butterworth. You mentioned it was your opinion that hunting is a poor method of targeting rogue foxes or foxes perhaps which do damage. Could you explain to us the evidence behind how perhaps the use of gun packs, lamping at night, driving foxes to guns or indeed trapping, with particular reference to mink, are better at being able to target rogue species in particular, particularly bearing in mind some of those activities take place at night, and particularly in the context of trapping which strikes me as being quite a difficult one? Could you illuminate that a little?
DR BUTTERWORTH: What is a rogue fox? Is a rogue fox a fox that takes lambs or battery poultry? It is certainly not an animal which takes commercial poultry that is protected in sheds. The question of lambs is an open one. There is not a final answer to how many lambs can be taken by foxes or taken by feral dogs, for instance. Anyway, what is a rogue fox? Why I would like to know what a rogue fox is is that you probably need to destroy it in the region where it is demonstrating its roguery, otherwise how can you be sure that it was a rogue fox or one of the other kind of foxes you are likely to raise during a day's hunting activity?
MR HART: This is the question being reversed. I think you have asked a leading question to me. If I may answer, I think part of the purpose of hunting is to do primarily that, and obviously there is the use, for example, of the fell packs in identifying foxes and accounting for them in a way which I suspect is well known to all of us. There is clearly also, if I can put it by way of a question, a suggestion that pre-emptive control exists. If you are trying to run an agricultural business, it is asking a bit much to wait until the damage is done before you undertake the control. It is a bit like saying to the shopkeeper, "You have actually got to wait until you're burgled before you put a lock on the door", and whether that features in any way in the cruelty relationship that you apply.
DR BUTTERWORTH: That is very interesting, because what you are proposing is that you prophylactically remove foxes from your local environment - ie to protect your livestock - which is a very laudable aim, no doubt. Two things about that. One, foxes may play a role in your local environment in maintaining your local environment in terms of management, and that needs to be addressed. The second is, if you remove that fox, will that role be rather rapidly filled by another fox? So if you prophylactically remove that fox, that is fine, but you might find that its role has been filled, whereas if you identify individual rogue animals, by whatever means, and you can demonstrate you can target those, fantastic, but can you demonstrate that you can target individual rogue foxes? The evidence that Professor Webster brought out, which is that in an average hunt day many more foxes will be rounded than will be killed, suggests that you cannot target an individual fox.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does that finish the specifics?
MR HART: I suspect it could go on forever, but yes.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does anybody want to add anything?
DR WISE: On the question of terriers, Ministers, of dogs that hunt, frankly, if you do want to target a rogue fox you will find the earth with your terrier and you will see what is outside the earth.
MR JACKSON: Perhaps Richard Lissack could ask his follow-up question. It is a very short one.
PROFESSOR STEPHEN HARRIS: Do I get a chance to answer? I did have two questions that I was asked. The first one, if I may remind people, was, paraphrasing, do I think I missed any wounded hares that were not done by hunts, foxes, buzzards and everything else. No, I do not actually. I will give you two reasons for that. A lot of this data came from the estates in East Anglia, the shooting estates, that is where the shooting was done, and if you remember the evidence yesterday there are actually very few foxes on game estates, and where they do turn up the gamekeepers try to deal with them very quickly. These are areas of the country where there are not actually very many buzzards, in fact there are virtually none, and it is an area of land where the gamekeepers are walking over that land and being asked specifically to look out for game and dying hares as well. So I think that if there many of them around, we would have got them. So I do not think they were there. I would quote perhaps one person who has done something very similar in that part of the country, a woman called Catherine Woodpole. She was actually doing exactly that and looking for dead hares and for disease in hares. Very few of the hares that turned up for her were shot. So I think we probably have a pretty fair estimate of the number of wounded hares around.
The other example was what you would do if you had an injured fox and you chase it to earth. To some extent, that is such a hypothetical question that I am not sure that I can make a very sensible comment on it because the evidence I have given is that I have been out extensively with people night shooting with rifles and shotguns and bay shooting as well in both England and Australia where they are doing it and I have yet to actually see a situation where that problem has arisen. So, as far as I am concerned, it is such a remote problem that I am not inclined to worry about it.
MR LISSACK: My next point is short but it may be important. I would like to ask a question of Dr Butterworth and Professor Stephen Harris. Earlier on today Professor Morton, and this afternoon a moment or two ago Professor Webster, each in their own way, made the same point which relates to the method of controlled hunting with hounds or dogs, and it is this, that it is important to distinguish between the chase and the kill. I would like to hear what each of the two experts says about the rightness or wrongness of views expressed by Professor Morton particularly who said that the fear of chase, which he thought was the big issue to use his words, rather than the kill which he thought was ranking equal with other methods.
DR BUTTERWORTH: I think to differentiate between the chase and the kill is artificial in the sense that you cannot have a kill without a chase. You can sometimes. For the majority of foxes and for all deer, there will be a chase. So, to separate it from the kill is, in my mind, completely artificial; it is part of the same process. For many foxes, it will be a chase, followed by a digging out, followed by a kill and they are all part of a given process towards the removal of that animal. That is the stated aim. So, to separate them into sizeable chunks is sensible because you can analyse them: you can analyse the time of the chase, you can analyse the stress of the chase and you can analyse the time of the kill. However, fundamentally, they are all connected; they are all part of the same process.
PROFESSOR STEPHEN HARRIS: I think I would agree with that.
MR BATCHELOR: I would like to ask the question which I think really goes to the heart of fear in terms of suffering and sentience. I have found today absolutely fascinating because we seem to have moved from the sly fox to the calculating fox and I quote from Professor Webster's paper,
"A fox that is roused by hounds has a 10:1 chance of escaping death by hounds. It
follows then that most foxes 'expect' to escape."
Certainly this is a clever fox. What evidence is there that foxes have actually had access to the data that allows them to calculate that chance and therefore, in essence, are they really sentient, in which case presumably they have the capacity to suffer or, as Douglas Wise has said, are they quite incapable of that calculation? I should like to know from the panel in essence who is right and who is wrong in terms of an animal's ability to fear.
THE CHAIRMAN: The question really is whether they qualify for MENSA or not!
MR BATCHELOR: So it would seem. We have a clever fox.
PROFESSOR WEBSTER: If I may pick up on that first since it was addressed to me. Sentient animals have the capacity to learn from experience. They do not necessarily have an image of the hunt in advance but have the capacity to learn from experience and modify their behaviour accordingly. In the case of many prey animals in the presence of a predator, the immediate chasing predator, they take immediate action which is appropriate in response to the stress and constructive fear and then, having achieved their immediate gain - they may subsequently be hunted and harried but that is a separate issue - their behaviour appears to return to, shall we say, normal maintenance behaviour. From the interpretation of their behaviour, I believe they are learning by experience as they deal with the initial challenge. Threats come again and again and again and ultimately they may fail to cope, but the evidence of their behaviour is that they learn from experience and we do know that animals learn from experience.
MR BATCHELOR: I would like the other members of the panel to comment on that but, secondly to that, if animals can learn by experience which seems to be the basis of what Professor Webster is saying, then surely that experience is also teaching them that being hunted with hounds is not particularly good for their welfare.
PROFESSOR WEBSTER: They only experience death once! They do not learn from it. Their experience is that they will not get killed. From the time they are killed, they learn nothing!
PROFESSOR STEPHEN HARRIS: Very briefly, I find it a very strange argument which Professor Webster has presented. I do not quite understand it. It might be a very clear argument if the simple situation was that they were able to utilise their skills to escape, but they are stalked out and, when a number of them get away, it is really the luck of finding a place where they can actually go to ground. I think it is very hard to say that a strategy whereby they learn the strategy of trying to find some safe refuge, sometimes they are lucky and sometimes they are not, and I am not sure whether there is some sort of learning curve there or it is a very selective process, or I am not sure whether they are quite happy to calculate those figures which Professor Webster has presented.
DR WISE: I would suggest possibly, with respect, Professor Harris does not understand it because he has not studied animal welfare as an oncologist, but there is the eminent reinforcement of association learning, as Professor Webster said. It is well accepted that animals can habituate and learn. All sorts of very complex behaviours can be carried out by animals, probably what we would call mentality behaviours, at an implicit level which does not imply consciousness. This is the great danger of using behaviour as an indicator of what animals are feeling.
THE CHAIRMAN: We are coming towards the end of this session and I am rather conscious that we have had a series of questions and discussions on some quite specific aspects and Peter tried to draw out how clear we are on one particular issue. I do not want to end this session without going back to the main topic, which was to look at the method that causes least suffering in controlling quarry species in relation to fox, deer, hare and mink. Could we ask the members of the panel each to give us their sort of headline view on that overall topic to draw us back from some of the detail to the overall topic that we were trying to address.
PROFESSOR STEPHEN HARRIS: I think that information is contained within my paper but I would say that with fox, I think shooting, rifle or shotgun, and I think a close season, like in many other European countries, amongst sentient mammals. With the hare, again shooting and again a close season. For deer, shooting with a rifle, the laws are quite clear on that, providing the type of weapon you use in the close season. For mink, trapping.
DR WISE: I do not think anyone will be surprised when I say that any method that involves use of dogs is likely to be more humane if you judge it over the lifetime of the animal. I also say that recreational hunting tends probably to give a better death than pest control but, where dogs are used in pest control, I think they are very often better than other methods.
PROFESSOR ROGER HARRIS: There are many different ways in which deer hunting can progress: the length of the hunt certainly, the average pace, the distance which a deer can establish between themselves and the hunt for a period or degree of recovery. So, from that perspective, at the beginning of hunts, I do not think there is quite the anxiety on the part of the deer that will occur towards the end I really do not know enough at all about the wounding rates on Exmoor and the Quantocks. It is very difficult, in the absence of that data, to compare on the one hand deer being hunted by dogs with a period towards the end of hunting which would cause anxiety to a wounding rate for that particular area which at the moment is really still not known.
PROFESSOR WEBSTER: All methods of killing involve some degree of suffering in relation to wild species. I am not persuaded that the hunting with dogs causes significantly greater suffering for the majority than quickish kills involved with foxes, hare and mink. I have concerns which I have expressed about deer hunting as Professor Harris has also stated, but I do think that we must consider the consequences of the very serious compromising of the welfare of the few numbers who may be wounded by other means for a long period of time.
DR BUTTERWORTH: I prefer to refer you to the paper because, in that, I have attempted to use a line to ascribe possible values to the different methods and I do not think that I have time to explain my rationale for that. So, if you have the time or wish to know my full answer, then read my paper.
THE CHAIRMAN: Can I thank the five of you for taking part in what has been an illuminating discussion. I think having five witnesses as well as three sets of questioners, or four if you include me, does make this session a complex one, but I think it has been rather worthwhile and I am grateful for the way in which you have all given your answers and responded to the questions. Can we break now and be back here at 3.30 for the debate.
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Page last modified:
19 May, 2005
Page published: 10 December, 2002