HUNTING V FARMING

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14065, 11 February 1939, Page 3

HUNTING V FARMING

THE LAW EN ENGLAND FINE FOP SHOOTING HOT'.Vi) An Englishman who came bacic iioni Now Zealand four years ago and sank £23(X) in a piece of land near Lyme Regis. Dorset, in order to raise poultry, declared this week: “Since England thinks more of foxhunting than farming, I am going to British. Columbia, and I an\ taking my money with me.” Frederick P Poltick. 43, big-game hunter and world traveller, had iust been fined £-5 and ordered to pay £G Ss 6d costs to Axminster for shooting a fox-liound. Members and followers of the Axe Valle Harriers were in court- and the hound, still limping, was brought in while a veterinary surgeon pointed out his injuries Mr. J McGahev prosecuting for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said the- story began m 1936. Pol took wrot- twice to the secretary of the Axe Vale Harriers objecting to any part of the hunt' passing over his land. NO REASON FOR KIT,) .Tv-u Mr. McGahey said that Mr. Pol-toc-k’s remedy was an injunction. “I can see no reason for his shooting a defenceless animal which was fol- - its natural instincts of chitsmg a fox. ’ Pollock, in evidence, said he aimed at the heart of die hound, which had tried to clear some wire netting intending to kill it outright. “livery much regret shooting the dog,” he added. ”1 regretted it at the time ” ‘Personally, j. like the element cf risk. I liave shot big game for 27 years but chasing a little fox has never appealed to mo,” he said afterwards. “Either I shut down and allow the hunt to amuse themselves here 'Or the hunt shuts down and helps me to produce. the nation's foodstuffs. The decision of the magistrate to-day showed me that it is I who must shut down.”