Over 100 Hunt Saboteurs Disrupt Inglorious 12th
Hunt Saboteurs Association News Release 13th August 2017
Over 100 hunt saboteurs from around the country descended on the moors of Yorkshire and the Peak District yesterday to disrupt the first day of the grouse shooting season.
They first stopped a shoot on the Notorious Saddleworth Moor before moving South to the Fitzwilliam estate in the heart of the Peak District and preventing an afternoon of shooting. The police attended both incidents but appeared to have little interest in enabling the shooters to continue.
The Glorious 12th is the highlight of the shooting calendar and shooters pay thousands of pounds each for the privilege of blasting birds out of the sky. The shooting estates claim they maintain the grouse moors but the reality is that, although picturesque, they are a barren wasteland. Natural predators such as foxes, stoats and birds of prey are shot and trapped in large numbers, mountain hares are killed as they carry tics that may affect the grouse and the grouse themselves are heavily medicated as their unnaturally high levels allows disease to spread. By the end of the grouse shooting season in December over 500,000 birds will have been shot.
Lee Moon, spokesperson for the Hunt Saboteurs Association, stated: “ Well done to the hunt saboteurs who stood between the guns and the grouse yesterday. There is currently a groundswell of protest against the shooting industry in the UK. For years they have hidden behind their flimsy claims of conservation but this mask has now slipped and the reality of this cruel sport has been exposed. Not only are hundreds of thousands of grouse killed each year but any potential predator is wiped out by armed gamekeepers who shoot, trap and poison all the other species on the grouse moors. Yesterday on the moors we didn't see a single bird, apart from grouse, all day. Their beauty disguises the grim reality of these barren killing fields.”
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ALSTON HARE WEEK...THE FINAL NAIL IN THE COFFIN?
News has reached the HSA that all is not well with the Weardale & Tees Valley Beagles (WTV), organisers of the notorious Alston Hare Week hunting festival.
Until recently the WTV were one of the few beagle packs to still enjoy 'professional' status: they had their own kennels and a paid employee to feed and hunt the hounds. Now, however, they find themselves in such dire financial straits that they have been forced to sell off their kennels and become an 'amateur' pack. The hounds will be kennelled with a neighbouring foxhunt and their kennel huntsman, Gary Wingar, has already defected south to become huntsman of the Easton Harriers.
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Why this sudden downturn in the fortunes of the WTV Beagles? It's all to do with the collapse of their annual hunting festival, Alston Hare Week. This event involved southern beagle packs travelling north every October to hunt hares in the WTV's wild upland country. The visitors paid through the nose for this privilege and were further fleeced at a series of social events held throughout the week.The HSA sabotaged Alston Hare Week in 2014 and, the following two years, prevented it from happening at all. Deprived of this extra revenue the WTV have hit hard times, and it seems less likely than ever that they will be able to resurrect their cruel hunting festival.
However, the HSA is not complacent and we are determined that Alston Hare Week will never happen again. Our specialist operatives are already monitoring the situation on the ground and we are grateful to the many Alston residents who continue to send us information about the decline of the Weardale & Tees Valley Beagles.
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Three Employees of Derwent Hunt Charged with Illegal Hunting
Hunt Saboteurs Association News Release 16th May 2017
Three employees of the Derwent hunt in North Yorkshire have been charged with illegal hunting.
The three: huntsman Sean McClarron, kennel huntsman Jason Marles (now huntsman at the Eggesford Hunt) and whip Damian Readman are due to appear at Scarborough Magistrates Court on 22nd May.
This follows footage obtained on the 1st November 2016 by members of Sheffield Hunt Saboteurs, at a meet in Wilton in North Yorkshire. Towards the end of the day sabs filmed a fox being bolted from underground and then chased by the pack of hounds. The law stipulates that if a fox is dug out it must not be released to be further hunted.
Lee Moon, Spokesperson for the Hunt Saboteurs Association, stated: “It's telling that in practically the same week that the Tories are promising a vote on repeal, the hunting community are showing how above the law they believe themselves to be. Who else, apart from the Conservatives, would choose to reward law breakers by repealing the very law they so blatantly ignore?
Hunt saboteurs were around long before the hunting act and we'll continue to protect wildlife whatever the self serving lackeys of the Countryside Alliance in Westminster decide to do next.
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