Schedule 3 - Hunting with Dogs: Prohibition
Hunting Bill
6:15 pm
Mrs Llin Golding (Newcastle-under-Lyme, Labour)
The report says also:
``Hunting can be helpful in providing a free service to farmers and others that identifies where mink are located, enabling them to target trapping efforts more effectively.''
So dogs can be used to enable farmers to trap more effectively. I agree that, in the scheme of things, a relatively small number of mink are involved—perhaps 20,000 or so run around the islands off the coast of Scotland—but it cannot be right for the Bill to prohibit such control. The point was made earlier that because foxes attack and kill rabbits, one should leave rabbits alone and let nature take its course. Following that argument, one should also leave mink alone—yet nothing takes its course and they just keep reproducing. The cost of putting out traps to eradicate mink in just one part of the country could amount to £30 million to £40 million. If we do nothing, but prevent those who are doing something from doing so, we will have more mink and invasive species generally.