Page 57 - The Hunt - Summer 2021

“What goes hand-in-hand
with foxhunting is conservation. We’re respecting, preserving and celebrating the fox.”
—Radnor huntmaster Collin McNeil
Radnor Hunt’s goals mirror those of its neighboring partner, Willistown Conservation Trust. “There’s a symbiotic quality in the way they do their thing and the way we do our thing,” says McNeil. “What goes hand-in-hand with foxhunting is conservation. We’re respecting, preserving and celebrating the fox.”
A canine subspecies, the fox was once killed as an agricultural pest. Foxes in Scotland, for example, were known to eat the tongue out of the mouth of a baby lamb, which would then bleed out. “In our case, we have good hen houses, and not a lot of sheep,” McNeil says. “We may purposely chase them, but not to hunt them in a traditional sense. We talk about foxes in glowing, reverent terms. Animal behaviorists say they enjoy being chased. Plus, they’re so much smarter than the hounds, so they might just enjoy toying with a crying pack.”
As for Stitch, after he was rescued, he definitely required a bath—and bottle feeding. After hours of close work, he turned tame. Eventually, Nafe made him a daytime den in a storage shed. Though an omnivore, he loved a Snickers bar after a dinner of raw deer meat. He slept in Nafe’s bed at night, played with her cats like siblings, and rode on the dash of her truck. When let out, he stayed close, listening when called.
Since his release, Stitch visits regularly, maintaining that symbiotic relationship and toying with her foxhunting horse, whose ears point forward and eyes grow big. “That smell ...” says Nafe. “That’s what we chase after.” TH
A fox is a tough catch. Unbeknownst to some, you hardly ever nab one while foxhunting. “It’s
a sport, not a
death match,” says one in-the know non-hunter.
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