I’ve watched the same arguments surface repeatedly: tradition, countryside culture, rebranding, and the familiar insistence that unless you’ve personally taken part, you’re not qualified to judge. None of these are new, and none of them change the substance of the issue.

Definitions, for clarity

Hunting refers to taking animals for food or genuine population control.
Sport implies competition based on skill against a willing or equal opponent.
Spectacle is killing framed as entertainment, ritual, or aesthetics.

This post addresses the last category.

To be clear: I don’t oppose hunting by default. Hunting for food or legitimate pest control is a separate discussion and always has been. What I reject outright is killing being dressed up as a sport or preserved for how it looks, sounds, or feels to watch.

Tradition isn’t a defence

Calling something tradition doesn’t justify it. Tradition explains duration, not morality. History is full of practices that were once “just how things were done,” right up until society decided that explanation wasn’t good enough anymore.

Rebranding doesn’t change outcomes

Renaming fox hunting as “trail hunting” doesn’t change what happens on the ground. When hounds are whipped into a chase and a fox is “accidentally” encountered often enough to be predictable, that isn’t coincidence — it’s a loophole functioning exactly as intended.

When a banned practice survives by changing its label while preserving the same behaviours, scrutiny isn’t hostility. It’s the entire point of regulation.

When the argument becomes aesthetic

Phrases like “may this sound never die” strip the argument bare. At that point, it stops being about land management or necessity and admits what’s actually being defended: the experience. The ritual. The spectacle.

Once killing becomes entertainment, calling it sport collapses under its own weight.

Sport implies skill against an equal or willing opponent. A pack of dogs against an animal with no chance doesn’t meet that definition, no matter how long it’s been normalised or how romantic the presentation.

The experience fallacy

The claim that you can’t judge something unless you’ve done it doesn’t hold up. Judgment doesn’t require participation. Requiring personal involvement before moral evaluation would exempt every harmful practice until after someone takes part.

I’ve never tried skydiving without a parachute either, and I don’t need to in order to know it’s not for me. Ethics don’t work on a “try it first” basis.

On location and lived experience

Whether I live in a city, a village, or the middle of nowhere is irrelevant. Ethics don’t change by postcode. Moral judgment isn’t restricted to people who happen to live near a practice, and proximity doesn’t grant immunity from scrutiny.

“You don’t live here” isn’t an argument — it’s an attempt to close ranks. Practices that require geographic gatekeeping to survive don’t survive scrutiny.

This position isn’t based on where I live. It’s based on what’s being defended, how it’s defended, and why those defences fail.

An actual alternative that doesn’t require harm

There are groups that run clean-boot style pursuits where dogs follow a human scent and the “prey” is a willing runner. No animal is harmed. Everyone involved consents. The dogs still get to work, and the challenge is real.

If someone wants to argue for sport, this is what sport looks like: consent, skill, and no body count at the end. It keeps the chase without pretending harm is necessary.

Personally, I’d either volunteer to be caught first just to fuss the dogs, or never leave the start line because I’d be too busy petting them. That aside, the point stands — the existence of alternatives makes the defence of spectacle weaker, not stronger.

Intent and scope

This isn’t an attack on rural life, farming, or people who live outside cities. It’s a rejection of one practice being defended on the wrong grounds.

This post isn’t here to persuade, debate, or “educate city people.” It exists to draw a line and make it clear where this blog stands.

Comments policy

This page exists as a statement, not a discussion. Comments attempting to relitigate the issue will be ignored or removed.

This position is settled. This page exists so I don’t have to repeat it.