A Message From Chris Packham – A Note For Hunt Saboteurs!

Micro Mob Rule In The Mud

I don’t really have ambitions , I don’t like generating expectations, but there are two things that I would like to see happen before I pop my clogs. One, the end of the fur trade . . . and two, an end to fox hunting. From my perspective they are both vile. Small word vile, but powerful, and it completely encapsulates my contempt and loathing for those who deliberately perpetuate animal cruelty.

So on Saturday I went out with a jolly group of Sabs to the Mendip Farmers last [Saturday] hunt of the season, and let’s be clear – they were hunting foxes, as far as I could make out they weren’t even bothering with the ‘smokescreen’; although halfway through the day they were seen dragging an old sock 100m across a field, a stunt the sabs suspected was performed because we were filming the proceedings.

I had not been out with a hunt since 2020 (my local lot have switched to drag)…and things have changed quite a lot since then…fewer riders, fewer followers, a pervasive sense of the inevitable collapse of their nasty hobby fills the air, and chaos. Read the full reports, but the anarchy at the end of the afternoon when they lost their pack, which scattered, some dogs ending up on a busy main road, reports of at least one sadly hit by a car, was frankly indicative of their imminent end. The plot was lost with Hankinson, what remains is a dreary shambles, a tiny bunch of foul mouthed and violent people moping about in their shrinking anachronistic bubble, maudlin in the mud. Oh dear, what a shame.

As I mentioned we were filming for a little project, more to come on that later, but my other reason for turning up was to try and say thank you personally to the dedicated sabs and monitors who work so hard at the sharp end of our mission. Poor weather, the threat of harm, the cost of damage, the constant exposure to nastiness and ultimately the potential of seeing our beautiful wildlife ripped to pieces are the price that you/they pay. And I truly respect that price and have both enormous respect and admiration for that work. Because without it we would never have made the progress that we have. The League, more recently Protect the Wild, and many others do great work, but we all depend upon the evidence you gather in the field. In the mud. In the face of violence.

Thank you, you are brilliant. Please stay safe, it’s going to be one hell of a party!