Hunting leads to the loss of diversity

Hello word! (: Today I'm going to talk about the negative effects of hunting, I must to say that I'm against of this "sport", but I'm just want to give you some information so you can decide if you are in favor or against of hunting.

Hunting leads to the loss of diversity because people kill a lot of animals during the hunt. The number of foxes killed by hunts is from 25,000 to 35,000 and the number of mink killed each year is approximately 14,000. If people continue killing these animals in this way, they are going to make a change on the ecological cycle and these is going to affect the environment. Also, this can lead to the extinction of some animals and we need to be responsible of our acts because we are not only going to affect the animals, we are going to affect our society because we depend on the animals, each animal have an important contribution to the word, for example, the foxes eat rodents and help with the overpopulation of them. 

In my opinion, I think that every animal is part of our word and contribute with the cycle of life, we need to protect them. 

Bibliography

Sports, League Against Cruel. League . 08 11 2011 <http://www.league.org.uk/content/523/Tell-me-why-this-is-happening->.

Facts about fox

Hello Everyone! Last week I wrote about the activities that people do during the hunt, bout in the post of the week I’m going to talk about some interesting facts about foxes. I think that foxes are really special and I think that they have a lot of interesting facts to surprise us. Well, I’m going to start with the list:

-The fox is considered to be a sacred animal in Japan

-The sexual maturity is about 10 months of age.

The red fox prefers open country habitat but the grey fox prefers dense areas for survival.

-Foxes are the smallest members of the dog family.

-Foxes help with the balance of the ecological cycle because they kill rodent and help to control an excess of the population.

-The foxes can be found in almost every kind of habitat. This show their ability to adapt to the presence of humans.

-Foxes are solitary.

-Foxes are similar to cats and dogs, but they generally avoid contact with these animals.

- The female fox is called vixen, but humans used this word to describe an attractive but cunning woman.

These are some interesting facts about the foxes. It was really interesting to investigate about it and also really fun. I hope you enjoy it (: 

Bibliography

Sartore, Joel. National Geographic . <http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/red-fox/>.

Hello everyone! The last week I wrote about the way that foxes communicates, I think that the last post was really interesting because I surprised about how foxes used all their senses to communicate. But today, I am going to talk about people. During the foxhunting, every person that participates has an encomended activity. I’m going to explain you how the activities are distributed.

Master of foxhounds. The master of foxhounds is the person that will always have the final say over all matters in the field.

The huntsman. This person is in charge of directing the hounds in the course of the hunt.

Terrier man. Their job is to control the terriers

Honorary secretaries. Volunteers that collect the money from guest riders.

Whips. The whips are assistants of the huntsman and their job is to keep the pack all together, with these, they are preventing the hounds from straying.

Kennelman. The kennelman is the one that is assuring that all the tasks are completed when staff returns from hunting.

All these people are really important during the hunt because they all work in group to maintain the sequence of the activities.

Bibliography

Robards, Hugh. Foxhunting. United States , 2011.

Foxes

Hello everyone! The last post I wrote about the field hunter that is the most common horse that is ridden for fox hunting, and well, as you noticed, I love horses (:! But now, I am going to talk again about foxes. While I was reading some articles on the Internet I found information that was about the way that foxes communicate. I think that this is a really interesting topic because, Who hadn’t ask yourselves how the animals communicate? Well, I’m going to explain you how the foxes communicate with other foxes.

Sound: Foxes are one of the most silent animals but they also use a wide range of calls like, for example, they ask for their mother’s attention or also to locate another fox or a mate. These calls are made all the year but it is more common to hear fox callings during the winter.

Smell: The use of smell to communicate information to other animals is called scent marking. The foxes use urine to communicate to other groups. For example, they mark their home range and also the urine is used to communicate when the females are fertile.

Posture: Foxes used many facial expressions and body posture. Tail wagging is used when meeting family members and aggressive behavior may be directed towards.

Well, these are the most common ways that foxes used to communicate between them, but there also some investigations about if the foxes recognize each other’s smell, but people can not know for sure if foxes could do that.

Bibliography

Bristol, University of. The fox website . 04 02 2009. 19 10 2011 <http://www.thefoxwebsite.org/>.

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>.

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>.

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.

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>.

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.

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.