Lawmakers must stop brutal fox pens

On Friday, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission considered what to do about fox pens - fenced enclosures in which packs of dogs chase foxes and coyotes. The penned wildlife are often torn apart, or chased until they drop in their tracks.

The people who run these pens call it old-fashioned fun - competition to see whose dogs can stick to their captive prey the best.

Fun? In truth, this is one of the last of the true animal blood sports that has not been outlawed, and it's time commissioners lift Florida out of the dark ages and into the 21st century. Florida needs to prohibit fox pens. And the temptation to try to transform barbarity into something civilized with "regulations" should be avoided.

I say that because back in 1991, that's what the commission attempted. It didn't work. It cannot work. Granting someone a "permit" for cruelty does not make cruelty right - it only diminishes the authority of those entrusted to make wise decisions in the name of the public.

Florida residents continue to be shocked by the brutality of fox pens in their communities. Last year, neighbors to a pen witnessed dozens of coyotes crowded against a fence.The neighbors looked at the pen in confusion, until they saw dogs with numbers painted on their sides ripping into a cornered coyote.The neighbors spent the next year taking photographs of wounded coyotes and listening to animals dying inside the pen.

As far back as 1990, a neighbor to one pen contacted The Humane Society of the United States and said, "They turn the fox or coyote loose and then four of five dogs chase the animal until it drops from exhaustion...They either kill it or maim it up so bad it dies an agonizing death."Another Florida resident wrote us stating that he was a hunter, and make no mistake, what went on next door to him in a 600-acre pen was a bloody spectacle as bad as any dogfight.

And by now, it should be clear to everyone that even with the largess of government permits, fox penners cannot be counted on to live by any standard except their own.

In November 2009, the FWC arrested 12 people connected with multiple fox pens for illegally possessing foxes and coyotes. This investigation followed years of pens chronically violating permit requirements.It is rare for pens to submit the required records of animal acquisitions, and inspections often turn up animals with no documentation.

Stocked animals are a dangerous game, too. Pens constantly need to bring in fresh foxes and coyotes to replace dead ones.And there's not a much better way to spread rabies than to ship foxes and coyotes in the back of trucks, then put the terrified animals in unnaturally dense numbers in a fenced area. The state learned this the hard way when in 1995 a Texas strain of rabies occurred in a pen.

Some pens spent just as much time operating without a permit than with one.This month, one pen operator even had the audacity to continue to advertise multi-day competitions, even after the FWC denied renewal of the pen's permit due to repeated violations.

One of the supposed animal protective regulations requires at least a way for the wiliest of prey animals to escape the dogs. But inspections have even shown these escape routes deliberately blocked.

No, regulations cannot turn fox pens into something acceptable - not when animals are made to pay with their suffering for entertainment.

Jennifer Hobgood is the Florida state director for The Humane Society of the United States.