From the archives: 'Oh, For Fox Sake'
The fox hunting ban commenced from the 18th February 2005. With this in mind, Epigram dedicated a front page article to the ban, looking ‘at the issue that has provoked strong reactions from students on both sides of the divide’.
The article focuses on the upcoming AGM and the determination of an official Union position on the question of fox-hunting. It mentions Bristol student Harry Meade, now a British eventing rider, who invaded the Labour Party’s conference the year before to protest the ban. Meade and a number of other protesters joined the Labour party in order to enter the conference and disrupt Tony Blair’s speech. Meade and other pro-hunt students started the University of Bristol Hunt Club to organise the university’s hunt supporters.
For the upcoming AGM, Anti-hunt supporters proposed a motion asserting Bristol’s opposition to hunting, stating that ‘the Union believes hunting is cruel, elitist and unnecessary and that the recently passed law reflects public opinion’. They believed that ‘given the vocal pro-hunting faction of the University, it is necessary to speak out on the issue’.
The article continues to describe the opposition to the motion from the pro-hunting faction. The Bristol University Hunt Club was set up to represent the pro-hunting argument across campus. Their arguments focused on the belief that hunting is the most humane way of killing the fox population, with one representative saying the ban ‘will do the fox population more damage’ than fox hunting. The same representative asks ‘if hunting is banned who will look after our countryside?’.
The article advertises the next Epigram issue as a ‘hunting special’, set to further investigate student views through interviews, opinion and experiences.
First published in Epigram (31st January 2005).
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