Fox penning hits a sensitive nerve in Va.

With a nearly full moon still bright in the dawn sky, Davy Hackett released 14 foxhounds into a huge wooded pen holding about 60 foxes.

"C'mon! C'mon! Hey! Hey!" Hackett called out to Hershey, Lexie, Mojo and the other dogs. With his wife and young son joining him in the pen, and the hounds howling in the distance, Hackett seemed at peace.

"This is my relief valve," said Hackett, 34.

But where Hackett sees a wholesome family activity, others see a cruel blood sport. Called fox penning or foxhound training, this little-known practice is condoned by Virginia and about 20 other states.

Wild foxes are trapped, trucked in cages and released in 40 state-licensed pens, mostly in Southside and southeastern Virginia. There, foxhounds — often by the dozens and sometimes by the hundreds — are sent after the captive foxes.

All too often, critics say, terrified foxes run for their lives until they wear down.

"The dogs often overcome these tired animals and rip them apart," said Casey Pheiffer, wildlife-abuse campaign manager for the Humane Society of the United States, an animal-rights group.

No one knows how many foxes are killed each year. The pens are big — 100 acres minimum — and full of brush, so the kills aren't often witnessed. But Virginia's pens are stocked with about 900 to 1,300 new foxes each year.

"The operators say, 'We chase them but we don't kill them.' If that's the case, how come they have to keep adding so many?" said Ed Clark, president of the Wildlife Center of Virginia, an animal hospital in Waynesboro. "If Pinocchio said that, he'd put out somebody's eye."

Hackett said the pens need new foxes because so many die naturally of old age and disease. Only a tiny percentage get killed by dogs, he said.

The foxes "enjoy the chase as much as the dogs," he said. "It's just a game to them."

* * * * *

Hackett's pen is 302 rolling acres of young trees and underbrush pierced by gravel and red-dirt roads, about 85 miles west of Richmond. An 8-foot-tall, electrified fence runs nearly 3 miles around the property.

The morning was breezy, which made it hard for the dogs to pick up the foxes' scent. When they finally did, their howls and yelps echoed through the trees.

"They done struck!" said Hackett, a red-haired man in a khaki shirt and blue jeans.

Hackett added 42 foxes to his pen last year and 138 the year before, state game department records show. There's no way to know, but Hackett estimates the dogs kill fewer than 10 foxes a year, while many more die naturally.

If foxes get stressed during a chase, Hackett said, they can hide in natural holes or in escape boxes he built. (Virginia requires at least one escape spot per 20 acres.)

With his 5-year-old son, Dylan playing nearby, Hackett said, "Why in the world would I bring my boy down here to see something that's as barbaric as we're portrayed?"

The baying got close, and a red fox trotted out of the woods onto the dirt road near Hackett. The fox made a left, went up the road, then turned right, back into the woods.

Moments later, several dogs burst loudly into the road. They milled about, then took a right — precisely the wrong way.

"He done snookered them," Hackett said of the quarry. "That goes to show you he's sly as a fox."

Moments later Lexie got the scent, the other dogs headed her way, and the chase was on again.

* * * * *

Penning became popular in Virginia in the 1980s, state officials say, as a way to train foxhounds. Penning resembles fox hunting on foot, although the goal is not to kill the foxes.

Pen owners typically charge people to run their dogs, and some pens hold foxhound competitions.

The state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries began regulating the pens in 1997. That first year, 25 pens were stocked with 497 foxes, and the numbers have slowly grown. Last year, 40 pens added 964 foxes.

A lot of people probably don't realize the pens — also called preserves or enclosures — exist, said Mike Fies, a game department biologist whose job includes monitoring the pens.

Fox pens provide places hounds can train without getting hit by cars or running onto others' property, Fies said. They sometimes raise money for needy people and groups such as youth cheerleaders.

But the killing of foxes "can be a problem," Fies said. "I think anybody would have a problem with dogs tearing apart an animal alive. That's not something the game department wants to see."

Virginia's pens range in size from the 104-acre Needstan Creek pen in western Hanover County to the 950-acre Poole's Foxhound Training Preserve in Greensville County, records show.

In Poole's preserve, up to 600 dogs have been released on foxes at one time, Fies said. Game officials have discussed limiting the number of dogs allowed in a pen.

According to records, 258 foxes were added to Poole's pen last year, and 338 the year before.

Billy Poole, who ran the preserve for years, said new foxes are needed because so many hide from the dogs. "They get pen-wise."

Other states with fox pens include Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, Wisconsin and possibly another state or two, according to Pheiffer of the Humane Society.

Pheiffer said "there's an active dialogue" about the future of fox pens "in most, if not all" of these states.

Florida, which also allowed coyotes in pens because they are considered a more lively quarry, banned penning in September.

A multistate investigation of fox pens in 2007 found widespread violations of game laws. In Virginia, authorities temporarily shut down 35 of the then-41 pens, most of them for poor record-keeping.

Other charges included illegally buying wildlife and putting coyotes in some pens, game officials said. The cases went to local prosecutors, who gained some misdemeanor convictions. Fies said he was aware of no felony convictions.

Critics object not only to the penning but also to the trapping and trucking of the foxes.

"Our wildlife experiences the same fear and pain as people's pets," said Marlene A. Condon, a Crozet naturalist. "Does anyone think dogs or cats should be subjected to this kind of treatment?"

* * * * *

From the cab of his pickup, Steve Colvin saw a flash of gray in a distant field. He had trapped a fox.

As Colvin pulled up, the animal jumped and rolled over and pulled with its right front paw, caught in the rubber-padded jaws of the steel trap.

"It's all right fella," said Colvin, 38, as he approached. "I'm not going to hurt you."

A Barboursville man with a dark brown mustache and a goatee that's just getting some gray, Colvin comes from a long line of trappers. His wife and teenage daughter trap. "It's in our blood."

Using a wooden "catch pole," Colvin looped a cable over the fox's neck, then released its foot.

"By the tearing up of the ground, he's been in here at least five or six hours," Colvin said. "But you can tell by his foot, everything is in perfect shape."

The padded trap was designed to catch but not injure. "I've caught my own dog a couple of times," Colvin said.

Colvin put the animal in a metal box on the back of his truck. The gray fox would go to a pen, bringing Colvin $25 to $40.

Most of the 150 to 250 foxes Colvin traps each year go to pens. Colvin traps for fur, too, but a pelt brings only about $12 to $15 these days.

On this chilly morning in Greene County, with the Blue Ridge Mountains looming on the horizon, Colvin talked of a hunting-and-trapping ethic that many people don't understand.

"We are a dying breed. Everybody wants us outlawed. They think we're murderers and killers and we enjoy killing. That's not so at all. … I love foxes. If I don't thin them, Mother Nature will. They're going to die of mange, rabies or get hit in the road."

* * * * *It's impossible to know if penned foxes enjoy the chase or are terrified, said Jim Parkhurst, an associate professor of wildlife at Virginia Tech.

"Those are human emotions," Parkhurst said. "We don't know what's going on in the fox's head."

On the other hand, Parkhurst said, "I don't know of any wild animal that prefers being chased by wild predators. Do they fear it? We don't know. But it's an act of nature every day."

Parkhurst has mixed feelings about fox pens. On one hand, they give hound owners a place to run their dogs as suburbs encroach.

But a key hunting ethic calls for "fair chase" — not giving the pursuer an improper advantage.

"You have to question," Parkhurst said, "whether that is true in some of these pens."

rspringston@timesdispatch.com

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