Axe Vale Video Exposes the Horror of ‘Terrier Work’

On Saturday two hare-hunting beagle packs linked to educational institutions were stopped by hunt saboteurs.

In Northamptonshire, the seldom seen Stowe Beagles (part of the prestigious boarding school of the same name) were packed up by Beds & Bucks Hunt Sabs.

And in Gloucestershire, the often sabbed Royal Agricultural College Beagles (linked to the Royal Agricultural University) were stopped by Severn Vale Hunt Sabs.

On Wednesday 2nd October 2024, with Mendip and Somerset Sabs attended a meet of the Weston & Banwell Harriers with West Somerset Vale Hunt near East Huntspill.

After hunting a maize field, the hunt moved on to a patch of brambles and scrub next to Straight Drove and Cripps River. Whilst members of Somerset Sabs filmed from the ground, the Mendip drone unit launched the drone to observe the hunt from above. What sabs witnessed was unequivocally illegal fox cub hunting, and completely blows any pretence of the charade of trail hunting out of the water.

The HSA can exclusively report that a member of the public has been seriously injured by a North Yorkshire hunt.

On the 5th of November 2022, Gabrielle Jagger was walking down a bridleway when she saw the Pendle Forest & Craven Hunt coming in the opposite direction. She moved off the bridleway, leaving the hunt metres to pass. As they passed Gabrielle, a horse called Duke kicked out, hitting her in the pelvis and throwing her into the air. The rider, Bryony Fearnley, fled the scene, leaving no contact details, but other riders stopped to give assistance.

Following the HSA’s devastating exposure of the Axe Vale Harriers digging out a fox, we have been passed new video showing the Wrexham-based Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn Hunt using terriers to locate foxes in a badger sett.

In those heady days, when many in the hunting world still believed they were safe from our attentions the hunters were a little more honest about what happens in the early part of the season with beagle and basset packs. They meet in the early mornings or late afternoon, as with cub hunting with foxhunts, to avoid the heat of a late summer’s midday.

The unscrupulous fox hunters have attempted to conceal their cub hunting by rebranding it as “autumn” hunting. However, beaglers know that hunting young hares is so abhorrent that they simply deny it takes place.

Today the HSA is releasing a longer version of the horrific video in which the Axe Vale Harriers terrier gang were filmed digging a fox from a badger sett.

In case you didn’t know – and you almost certainly didn’t – Saturday was National Trail Hunting Day, better known as Smokescreen Saturday. Organised by the pro-hunt British Hound Sports Association, the much-vaunted event was billed as “the day we begin to change minds” on the legitimacy of trail hunting.