Catch up on recent news from the Hunt Saboteurs Association
Horrifying footage passed to the HSA shows the lengths fox hunts will go to conceal their illegal activities. A member of the public was filming the United Pack hunting around Corndon Hill in Shropshire on 30th January 2025, when they heard the huntsman’s horn blow for a kill in woodland.
Twenty years on from the birth of the Hunting Act, sabs are still defending wildlife.
The 18th of February marked the 20th anniversary of the hunting act coming into force, and even after all this time hunts up and down the country are still continuing as if it never happened.
The Two Bridges hunt club meet is an annual gathering of the four Dartmoor hunts (the Mid Devon, South Devon, Dartmoor, and Spooners & West Dartmoor) that grotesquely commemorates the anniversary of the Hunting Act.
On Thursday 30th Jan, a Somerset woman witnessed a pack of hounds tearing a fox apart after her afternoon was interrupted by a pack of hunting hounds running through the paddock outside her house.
Wendy Bowen, who lives in Westleigh near Lydeard St Lawrence, Taunton was working from home when she was interrupted by one of her dogs barking. She went outside to investigate what was causing his distress, and saw several hunt hound dogs in her paddock running loose. Shortly afterwards, she witnessed several hunt riders riding past her house, heading up the hill.
On this day in 2005 the Hunting Act came into force. It should have stopped the cruelty of hunting with hounds, but 20 years later hunts across the country are still chasing and killing foxes, hares and deer for fun. And often, hunt sabs are still the only people stopping them.
This week sees the 20 th anniversary of the enactment of the Hunting Act, an occasion marked by a special report on BBC’s Countryfile programme.
Viewers were treated to the sight of a hunt sab, an MP, and Assistant Chief Constable Matt Longman – National Police Lead for Hunting with Hounds – all agreeing that illegal fox hunting was ‘widespread’ under the current Act.
In a major victory for Northants Hunt Sabs, the notorious Cottesmore Hunt – recently the subject of a live broadcast by Chris Packham – have had their terriers seized by Leicestershire Rural Crime Team.
A summary of events over the last month – it’s been a busy and intense start to the year for all our groups across the country.
Yesterday – Monday 3rd February – North Dorset Hunt Sabs and Weymouth Animal Rights attended a meet of the North Devon Beagles at Stoke Farm, Broadchalke in Wiltshire. As a result of events witnessed during the day, local sabs now believe that this may have been the opening meet in a hare-hunting festival.
Bob Berzins continues his series of posts on the darker side of Britain’s Uplands.
Every Saturday through the hunting season sab groups see co-ordinated criminal activity from dozens of people chasing and killing foxes. An equal co-ordinated effort goes into killing every creature that might have an impact on moorland grouse populations.
A secret deal between Warwickshire Police and the Warwickshire Hunt has finally been released, following a two year campaign by West Midlands Hunt Sabs to expose the truth.
In early December 2024, Lake District Hunt Sabs prevented a fox from being killed by the Blencathra Foxhounds near Bowscale in the Northern Fells. Acting on a tip-off from concerned hikers, sabs arrived in the area to find the Blencathra’s hound trailer parked up on Swineside Road and hunt supporters lining fellside tracks with binoculars at the ready.
While the red-coated fox hunters inevitably dominate the Boxing Day media headlines, the festive season is also an important time for hare hunters, who like to squeeze in a few extra meets during the season of peace and goodwill.
Fortunately, this fact is not lost on hunt sabs who have mobilised against hare hunters across the country.
Special Report by Northants Hunt Sabs
As the Cottesmore Hunt gathered in Wymondham village, at the home of their former master huntsman and current British Hound Sports Association (BHSA) vice-chairman Andrew Osborne, Northants Hunt Saboteurs arrived with their own special guests in the form of Chris Packham (C.B.E. Broadcaster and Natural History Expert) and Megan McCubbin (Zoologist) who emerged from our vehicle in style!
Boxing Day is seen as a big day in the hunting calendar, a day focused on public relations with many hunts parading through town centres and offering a sanitised image of their bloodsport. With all of the added attention, it is often the only day that many hunts actually behave themselves and act within the law. But despite this, some just couldn’t help themselves…
On Monday 23rd December – a time of supposed peace and good will – hunt sabs were confronted with the horrific reality of hunting at the Suffolk-based Thurlow Hunt.
The annual Boxing Day Hunt Parade is a traditional fixture in many towns’ Christmas calendars, with families turning out to enjoy the ‘spectacle’. The hunt lingers for a while, drinking port, eating sausage rolls and basking in the admiring gaze of the public. So, what happens next? Here, we provide a step-by-step, behind-the-scenes account of how the rest of the day unfolds.
We at West Midlands Hunt Sabs have been calling the Warwickshire Hunt an Organised Crime Group for some time, but last night on Channel 4 News that view was repeated by a serving Warwickshire Police officer.
We have been campaigning for years to expose the corruption that we believe goes right to the top of Warwickshire Police and resulted in the controversial ‘secret deal’ being struck with the Warwickshire Hunt after the Community Protection Notice that had been served on them was withdrawn. This meant the Warwickshire Hunt effectively bypassed due process.
This view of corruption among senior officers at Warwickshire Police was confirmed by a serving officer within Warwickshire Police speaking anonymously to Channel 4 News. The officer states that they were not surprised by any of the behaviour around the hunt – it is just something that happens at Warwickshire Police, suggesting, perhaps, that the secret deal scandal is just the tip of the iceberg.
Just two weeks after we reported on the Beaufort Hunt bringing down a sab drone, another hunt has targeted our ‘eye in the sky’ technology.
Paul Watson has finally been released from prison! The anti-whaling activist, former hunt sab, founder of Sea Shepherd and the Captain Paul Watson Foundation has spent the last 5 months incarcerated in Greenland.
Sheffield Hunt Sabs have been focusing their efforts on the Grove & Rufford Hunt for four seasons now, and the pressure is obviously piling up.
They’ve been through four huntsmen in that time: Paul Larby leaving in disgrace after being caught shagging someone he shouldn’t in the hound van, the next, Gary Joynes, was a stand in gardener who didn’t know his horn from his whip, followed by an unmemorable Ben Higgins, and most recently a Tom Haddock.
Their mastership is also in disarray, with clear divisions in the hunt, a shortage of whips, and not many field riders with them either. When the only thing you can rely on is the sabs turning up each week, we can see why tempers are running high within the hunt, and the frustration is mounting.
