Stop ‘fox penning’ in North Carolina, USA

This video from the USA is called The Real Fox-Coyote Enclosure. There are some unpleasant and graphic scenes in the video, please do not watch if you will be at all offended.

From Wildlife Extra:

Barbaric ‘fox penning’ still legal in North Carolina

Coyotes and foxes used to ‘train’ hunting dogs
December 2012. North Carolina, the state where 7 Critically Endangered Red wolves were ‘accidentally’ shot in the last few months of 2012 (Out of a total wild population of around 110), still allows a barbaric practice which has been banned elsewhere. Wild foxes and coyotes are trapped, captured, and then put into pens where hunting dogs are used to fight and kill them.

This practice, which is currently legal – but entirely inhumane – allows people to trap wild foxes and coyotes and place them in confined pens where hunting dogs are then “trained” to bay and kill them. Often the foxes and coyotes are mauled to death, sometimes after enduring several rounds of “hunts” and injuries.

Opponents of this barbaric practice claim that competitions are run in which the hunting dogs are scored on how quickly they can bay/kill the coyotes or foxes. It’s a cruel thing to do to any wild animal, and it is akin to dog fighting which is illegal in the US, because all of the animals involved are canids. While foxes have been long used for this practice, we are told that wild coyotes are also now trapped for use in fox pens because, being more resilient, they live longer than the foxes through the “hound training.”

Sign a petition

If you would like to help, please sign this petition calling for a ban on this practice in North Carolina. Click here.