Fox hunting is a traditional and royal hunting sport, popularized all over the world by the British. Hunting dogs or foxhounds are trained to chase and attack foxes from their hiding places, and these are followed by hunters on the horses.

Hunting with hounds is outlawed and forbidden in countries holding high values of animal welfare. In these countries this sport is considered an ethically wrong and barbarian process.

Due to frequent hunting, the fox population has significantly dropped. Hunting is nowadays confined to merely chasing the animals to holes in the ground. On the other hand, in early times the earth was blocked up overnight to prevent the foxes from escaping into the ground. They were chased for hours so that they die in extreme stress and fatigue. If at all they escape, they gradually die of heart-lung bleeding, brain injury or pneumonia. Once they are dug out from the ground, instead of shooting them, men throw them to the waiting-dogs to tear them alive. Sometimes they are killed simply by bopping their heads with spade. This accounts why anti-hunting leagues urge to ban such a brutal and bloody pastime.

Hunting chases often result in serious damages to private properties, uninvited killing of pet cats and dogs, and destructions on the road and railway lines. Sometimes the hounds themselves are crushed under trains or killed by the fox. Thus the horses and dogs participating in the hunt are also hurt and killed during the furious chase. Hunt-chaos has been ended with the introduction of The Hunting Act, strictly allowing hunting only on a pre-set line. The government is suggesting methods like shooting, trapping and poisoning, instead of pursuing with the hounds. But this hasn't lessened suffering as the poor animals are more intensively shot and wounded.

In the context of strong opposition to fox-hunting, the supporters claim that hunting is essential to prevent economic downslide for rural communities and is a humanistic way of conservation because the excessive breeding of foxes may result in the wiping out of the hen and lamb population.