Foxes, hounds, and horses : Who or which?

Writers of English can choose whether to mark a high level of sentience in a nonhuman animal by selecting the word who rather than which. An examination of texts relating to foxhunting on the world wide web showed that, in reference to the nonhuman animals involved in foxhunting, writers were most likely to use who in reference to foxes, and least likely to use it in reference to horses. Those who support foxhunting are more likely to recognize the sentience of the fox than those who oppose foxhunting. This may be because those who enjoy foxhunting present the fox as an active creator of the hunt, and as a worthy opponen

Hunting and Agriculture: An Examination of the Functional Aspects of Landscape Architecture in Post-Restoration Scotland

The primary focus of the architectural historiography of Scottish country house landscapes in the long eighteenth century has been on formal and stylistic elements. However, these landscapes consisted of much more than ornamental and exotic gardens. Although landscapes were vehicles for conspicuous consumption, they also were the chief sites of food production and leisurely pursuits. As such, this paper instead endeavors to examine what the practical influences, specifically agriculture and hunting, were on these landscapes at the turn of the eighteenth century. This analysis derives from an evaluation of available literature and the 1685 Scottish Game Act. The ultimate conclusion drawn here is that formal elements, agriculture, and hunting were all powerful influences on early 18th-century landscape design. Further research, particularly through individual case studies, would only serve to show how landscape architects dealt with creating stunning yet useful landscapes

Legal Fictions in \u3cem\u3ePierson v. Post\u3c/em\u3e

American courts and citizens generally take the importance of private property for granted. Scholars have sought to explain its primacy using numerous legal doctrines, including natural law, the Lockean principle of a right to the product of one\u27s labor, Law & Economics theories about the incentives created by property ownership, and the importance of bright line rules. The leading case on the necessity of private property, Pierson v. Post, makes all four of these points. This Article argues that Pierson has been misunderstood. Pierson was in fact a defective torts case that the judges shoe-horned into a property mold using legal fictions and antiquated \u27facts about foxhunting. Moreover at least one of the judges knew his arguments were farfetched. My conclusions undermine several theories about private property that are based on Pierson v. Post

Hounding the urban fox: a Critical Discourse Analysis of a moral panic with an animal folk devil

In June 2010 an urban fox (Vulpes vulpes) attacked twin baby girls in their bedroom in Hackney, East London. The story made national newspaper headlines for weeks to follow and elicited commentary from concerned city-dwellers, pest controllers, foxhunters, politicians, scientists and animal protectionists. Many considered urban foxes a growing menace, branding them overabundant, out of place and more aggressive than their rural counterparts. Hunters pointed to the ban on hunting with dogs as a possible cause of a supposed explosion in the urban fox population and as a manifestation of urban ignorance regarding wildlife management. Others defended the foxes' place in the city and warned against knee-jerk reactions to one-off incidents. However, the response from many public and political figures to media reports of fox attacks was to call for urgent action on what is ostensibly a problem of animal behaviour. This thesis examines the urban fox attack phenomenon as a form of moral panic. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of a large sample of tabloid and broadsheet national newspaper articles, as well as a selection of television documentaries, pest control industry publications and lobby group materials spanning five years (2009–2014), is used to track the emergence and development of this moral panic and to examine how it is tied to anxieties surrounding not only human/animal relations in urban space, but also human social conflict more widely. In so doing, the thesis contributes a new perspective to the study of moral panics by reflecting on the implications for moral panic theory of ‘bringing animals in’

TO WHAT EXTENT HAS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HUMANS AND RED FOXES (VULPES VULPES) EVOLVED THROUGHOUT HISTORY?

Red foxes are one of the few creatures able to adapt to living alongside humans as we have evolved. All humans and wildlife have some id of relationship, be it a friendly one or one of mutual hatred, or simply a neutral one. Through a systematic research review of legends, books, and journal articles, I mapped how humans and foxes have evolved together. First, the relationship between humans and foxes in a geographical manner by starting in Asia, moving to Australia and Tasmania, then Europe, Africa, finishing with North and South America. I will be analyzing all the information through a lens to either support or find the fault in a loop similar to the one described in, “A conceptual framework to evaluate human-wildlife interactions within coupled human and natural systems” (Morzillo et al). The loop being is an impact-based feedback loop and describes the ways human behavior is influenced by wildlife. In Asian cultures, the fox spirit can be a benevolent teacher or malevolent bloodthirsty monster. Foxes were first seen as deceitful in Europe with the introduction of Reynard the fox in 1148. The Pale Fox is the center of the Dogon creation myth in Africa. When the Europeans began colonizing Canada and the United States, the fur trade was the first ever contact between the Europeans and the Native People. Then a single domesticated line was created by a Russian geneticist. Today red foxes have been one of the few creatures able to adapt to living in large cities such as Paris, Toronto, and Los Angles. The original question is, to what extent has the relationship between humans and foxes evolved? The uncomplicated answer…substantially

Protect our pubs!

Protect Our Pubs! is a project examining the notion of the nationalisation of pubs by the state. It involved a protest, audio tours of the pub, posters protesting at the notion, a contest for the smartest barperson, peg drinking contest, a flighting contest and various documentation. The protest and subsequent events took place at the Hare & Hounds Pub in the Midlands

James Ormsbee Chapin and the Marvin Paintings: An Epic of the American Farm

James Ormsbee Chapin and the Marvin Paintings: An Epic of the American Farm This dissertation re-examines the early career of James Ormsbee Chapin (1887-1975), and his most celebrated group of works known collectively as the Marvin Paintings. A pioneer in unconventional depictions of the American scene, Chapin made a significant contribution to the iconography of American art in the 1920s with a series of portraits depicting members of the Marvin family and images of them tending their New Jersey farm. Later critics praised these works as anticipating the works of the Regionalists triumvirate Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry, and Grant Wood. The methodology employed in this study consists of primarily of oral history and archival information culled from a variety of sources that lends support to the biographical analysis of Chapin's life up to 1930, as well as a critical analysis of the Marvin paintings and their reception

The Enjoyment of Rights and Freedoms: a New Conception of the 'Ambit' under Article 14 ECHR

Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, as applied by the UK judiciary under the Human Rights Act 1998, is in danger of becoming as 'parasitic' as it is often described. Judges have inappropriately narrowed the scope of the 'ambit' of other Convention articles, and thus limited the number of claims to which Article 14 can apply, by defining it according to considerations more properly weighed in a justification analysis incorporating proportionality. The emerging approach departs from Strasbourg jurisprudence, and fails to give full effect to the language and intent of Article 14. This trend need not continue. This article begins the process of fashioning a new conception of the ambit of Convention articles: one that could change the fortunes of Article 14 cases in the UK, but that flows naturally from the precedents of the European Court of Human Rights, and gives effect to the spirit of the HRA