Fantastic Mr Fox

On November 19, 2004 the British government passed its Hunting Act into law. The Act criminalized anyone who hunted a fox (or a deer or a mink) with a pack of dogs. A pack of dogs was defined as any number of dogs greater than two. Two hounds could still be used to 'flush out' a fox (or a deer or a mink) providing that it was a menace to the 'livestock, game and wild birds, crops, growing timber, fisheries or the biological diversity of an area'. The fox (or deer or mink) would then have to be shot as soon as was reasonably possible. Other mammals, notably rats, were not accorded this protection, and any animal could still be hunted using a falcon. A proposal to offer a free vote on hunting had formed part of the Labor Party's manifesto in 1997, but the debates that preceded the drafting of the Act, had, over the course of the ensuing seven years, taken up 275 hours, or well over a month, of Parliamentary time. To gain its acceptance, the government had been forced to employ the rarely used Parliament Act to defeat the opposition of the House of Lords.