miércoles, 28 de septiembre de 2011

Field Hunter

Hello everyone (: Last week I wrote about the fox fur and that was a topic really sad because the people that do that, use a lot of cruel methods to take the fur off the animal. But today I’m going to write about something interesting. I’m going to write about other animals that I love! Horses. Horses are one of my favorite animals, I love riding! (:

Well, first, a field hunter is a horse that is ridden for fox hunting. The term field hunter don’t refer to a specific type of horse, the term refers more to the function of the horse during the hunt. The performance of the horse is measured by their abilities to jump and the galloping speed. It is important to know that these horses have the necessity to gallop with dogs and other horses around, because if the horses start to uncontrolled, the rider are not going to be able to shoot.  Also, the horses need to be five years old to participate as field hunters.

Some characteristics that a horse needs to have to work; as field hunters are that they need to have straight legs, stamina and sure footedness. Also, it is important that the horse must be conditioned and trained before the first hunt, these is because if the horse is not training, they are not going to be able to calm when the rider is going to shoot.

To conclude these post, I think that horses are beautiful animals and I love ridding, also, I think that horses are really smart and reliable. When I started to learn riding I was very scared, but Mancha (that was the name of the horse) made learning easier because he was so calm and cute and well, at the end my father bought Mancha for me (:

Bibliography

Foster, Bethney. What Is a Field Hunter? 28 09 2011. 23 04 2003 <http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-field-hunter.htm>.

jueves, 22 de septiembre de 2011

Fox fur

Hello everyone! Last week I wrote about the American foxhound that is the most common dog that people trains to hunt foxes. But, today I’m going to write about the fox fur, all the things that people do with this and the controversy of it uses.
When the hunters kill a fox, they need to pick up the corpus and take it with them during the entire hunt and after this, they sell the fur and gain a lot of money. But, what happen with this fur? Well, some people use the fox fur to create clothes like coats or, sometimes, costumes. People buy this clothes because they said that is elegant, comfortable and pretty, but, in the other hand, the protectors of animal rights are against of this. One example of this in the case of Johnny Weir he is an skating champion, Weir wore a costume of fox fur during an olypistic  and because of that, people started to protest against his outfit. Also PETA started to send him, e-mails with videos of animals being skinned. After this, Winter has been forces to switch from real to fake fur.
In my opinion, I am against of using animal fur for clothes. I think that people don’t have the necessity to use this and it could prevent a lot of suffering of animals. I don’t understand the reason of killing an animal and make them suffer just because it’s going to make you “look better” when they can use fake fur and it is going to look almost the same. Sometimes, I think that a good way to stop this, is to make campaigns in which people show all the process that the animals have to pass to being skinned.


Bibliography

Caple, Jim. ESPN . <http://espn.go.com/espn/page2/index?id=4877567>.

viernes, 16 de septiembre de 2011

American Foxhound


Hello Everybody! Today I'm going to talk about other animals, dogs! I really love dogs; they are cute, friendly and smart! But well, you must be thinking, what is the relation between dogs and fox hunting? Well, I'm going to talk about the American Foxhound. The American foxhound is the most common dog that people train to hunt foxes. These dogs are training to catch foxes because they are really fast and they have a highly developed sense of smell. 
The temperament of these dogs is friendly and a lot of families have them as pets. The foxhound can be a really good pet for kids because they are sweet and gentle, even do, they can be an intense and brave warrior in hunt. 
 The life expectancy for these dogs is between 15 and 20 years, depending in the environment that they live.  They also are extremely energetic and tireless, because of that; they need to be taken on a daily long walk.
These dogs are great hunters; people use them in the foxhunting and also to hunt some animals like rabbits.
Random Fact: The largest fully surviving litter of puppies ever born, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, was a litter of 23 pups born to an American Foxhound in 1994

Bibliography

Smith, Polly. American Foxhound. Spain : PUBN , 1999.



jueves, 1 de septiembre de 2011

Fox hunting's controversy


Fox hunting's controversy
Fox hunting have became really controversy. When I said fox hunting, I’m talking about hunting, killing and eating a fox for no obvious necessity but, like everything, it has the pros and cons. A lot of people are against this but also; a lot of people think that hunting a fox is a sport and that they are doing good with the hunting.

First, people that is against of fox hunting are animal rights activists that try to defend the life of animals. They make protest and campaigns to show people the cruelty of fox hunting.  They think that killing an animal cannot be considered as a sport. It involves so much violence, they kill a fox and sometimes, they don’t eat them, they just kill the fox because they think that is fun or they want to show other people that they could hunt an astute animal like the fox.
In the other hand, there are a lot of people that are in favor of fox hunting and also have arguments to defend their side. They say that they only hunt the old foxes or the ones that are sick. They said that in Britain, each breeding season are about a quarter of a million of foxes and they turn into a plague that they control with the fox hunting.
In conclusion, I think that sometimes plagues could affect the population and people need to prevent and eliminate this, but I think that violence is not the solution. There are other ways to eradicate the plague of foxes. One solution could be to some vets sterilize the females so the reproduction of foxes is going to decrease.  I’m against of hunting and I don’t think that people just hunt foxes because they want to control a plague, sometimes they just do it for fun and they need to star thinking and analyzing that the animals are living beings. Animals also have feelings and they have rights and don’t deserve to be treated with violence. I’m in favor of the campaigns and protest that people do against this; sometimes people need to see the damage that they are doing to understand that what they are doing is causing a huge impact on the environment.

 Bibliography

A choice of cruelties. 16 09 1999. 31 08 2011 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/418821.stm>.


jueves, 25 de agosto de 2011

Red Foxes


Red Foxes
The red foxes are my favorite specie of foxes. They are cute and they have a lot of interesting facts, so, I decided to talk about them.            
            The red fox is the most common fox. They can live in different areas like forests, mountains and deserts. This kind of fox also adapt to the human environment like the farms and large communities.
            The red fox are omnivores, they eat the rodents, rabbits and birds that they hunt, but they can also adapt their diet to the food of their home. They can eat fruits, fish, frogs and even pet food. Red foxes are usually nocturnal; they look for food in the night while other animals are sleeping.
             They use their ears and the nose to hunt their food. They can make holes in the trees to live there, or they can also live in prairies and farmlands.
            The season of the red fox mates is on January. Two months after the mating, the female gives birth between one and twelve kits. The mother has the responsibility to feed the kits with some fruits, but eventually, she needs to start brining them live food so the kits can play with the food and eat it. This is because they need to develop skills for hunting. A kit leaves their family when he is about eight months old.
            Foxes can act like cats. First, they stalk they prey, the same thing that the cats do. Also, they play with their food after kill it, like cats. And even if they are not hungry they catch mice to play with and then they let them go when they are done. 

Bibliography
Jhonson, Angelique. Red Foxes . Spain: Peeble, 2001.


jueves, 18 de agosto de 2011

History of Fox Hunting



            In England, hunting became popular before the Romans arrived to the country. Over the time, different animals like the elk, brown beer and the English wolf been hunted into extinction. After a lot of species had been wiped out, the hunters started to use some wildlife animals like quarry and in the 20 century, fox hunting became very popular like one of the four major blood sports.
           
     The beginning of fox hunting was in England, in 1534. In this country, the farmers began to hunt foxes with their dogs as pest control. But later, in 1700 the people started considering the fox hunting for pleasure like the favorite sport among the nouveaux riches.  Hunting was considering as a noble, healthy activity that was only practiced in country areas. This “sport” was use to show wealth as the celebration of a social hierarchy. Because of that, the fox hunting became a sport of an elite of aristocrats, nobles and the bourgeoisie.
           
        Now days, a representative group of people still practicing this sport.  According to the British government, there exist more than 1.3 million hunters and fans that only follow the hunt by foot or car. However, there is also a group that is against of fox hunting, they think that fox hunting is cruel an inhumane, because of that, in February 2005, the Hunting Act 2004 outlawed fox hunting with dogs by Act Parliament.
            
       Nevertheless, the decision of banning fox hunting cause grave uproar among the hunting communities all over the Britain and because of the demand of this people, the fox hunting became legal again. 

Bibliography

Gast, Nicole. The fox hunting ban in Britian . Germany : Grin , n.d.