Catch up on recent news from the Hunt Saboteurs Association
Yesterday, Wednesday 9th August, hunt saboteurs disrupted the first fox cub hunt of the new season.Acting on a tip-off, Kent sabs followed the East Kent with West Street Hunt hound van to a meet at Etchinghill, near Folkestone. The hounds were repeatedly drawn through woods likely to contain cubs, but with sabs deploying their drone […]
Yesterday a terrier man and a gamekeeper (the difference is really just semantics) were both sentenced for extreme animal cruelty. Paul O’Shea, a terrier man with the East Essex Hunt, was handed an 18 week prison sentence suspended for a year and banned from keeping dogs for 5 years. His crime was to capture and […]
During the latter part of the 2021/22 hunting season, West Midlands Hunt Saboteurs put a stop to the Warwickshire Beagles illegal activities four weeks in a row. Instead of packing up, they chose to hunt on and were filmed chasing hares on five separate occasions. After having the later part of their hunting season wrecked, […]
Next year, the Hunt Saboteurs Association celebrates its 60th anniversary. It’s fitting, then, that a veteran hunt sab recently acquired a huge archive of HSA material that had him reflecting on just how far we’ve come in the fight against hunting. “I was recently contacted by a long-lost member of the HSA Committee who had […]
Britain’s leading huntsman, Mark Hankinson, has won his appeal against his conviction for encouraging others to hunt foxes. The judge accepted that “someone listening to his words might well have taken the view that he was encouraging illegal hunting,” but decided that the criminal threshold for proving intent had not been met. In reaching this […]
Two weeks on from East Essex Hunt terrierman Paul O’Shea pleading guilty to serious Hunting Act and Animal Welfare charges, there is a deafening silence from hunting’s new ‘regulatory body’ the British Hound Sports Association (BHSA). The BHSA claims to be a replacement for the wholly discredited Hunting Office, whose reputation was destroyed by the […]
The fall-out from the leaked Hunting Office webinars has claimed yet another victim – the Hunting Office itself. The totally discredited body is to be rebranded as the ‘British Hound Sports Association’ (BHSA) After 17 years of dishonesty and evasion, do they really think that removing the word ‘hunting’ from their title will convince people […]
Hunt saboteurs have been in action this weekend to stop mink and otter hunts at opposite ends of the country. The Northern Counties Hunt were rumbled near Selby, North Yorkshire, while the Courtenay Tracy Hounds were found in the depths of Somerset’s Chew Valley. Both packs headed home when confronted by large numbers of dedicated […]
WARNING: Distressing footage showing foxhounds being shot Horrific and previously unseen footage reveals the true extent of the hound killings at the Carmarthenshire Hunt. Filmed as part of Ecotricity’s investigation into dead animals being used to create electricity, the footage once again proves that hounds are treated by hunts as no more than expendable tools. […]
Most people celebrate our efforts to save mink and otters from the cruelty of illegal hunting. However, we occasionally receive ill-informed comments about how animal rights activists were responsible for introducing American mink to the UK. Last week – after four mink hunts were sabotaged in a single weekend – an unusually articulate hunter replied […]
Hunt sabs across the country have been in action against the mink and otter hunters this weekend. For the third Saturday in a row, the Dove Valley ‘Mink’ Hounds had their kennels blockaded by multiple sab groups. Specialist drone units were deployed to confirm that the hounds never left the kennels. Further west, other sab […]
This week the HSA launches an online archive of its magazine, HOWL. First published in 1973, HOWL has been in continuous production ever since, making it the longest-running – and best – animal rights magazine in the world. Over 120 issues have been painstakingly scanned and – in the case of fragile older editions – […]
WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES AND DISTRESSING CONTENT North Dorset Hunt Sabs have been in action against the Quantocks Staghounds in Somerset this week. Despite their brave efforts, sabs were unable to save a young stag who was remorselessly hunted to exhaustion. As is standard practice in stag hunting, experienced hounds were used to separate the wretched […]
The HSA can exclusively reveal that just under 24 million pheasants and partridges were imported into the UK in 2021 to be killed on shoots throughout the country. This makes up roughly half of all such birds released into the UK countryside. DEFRA figures show that 23,990,188 birds were shipped in from factory farms in […]
As spring arrives and the foxhunting season comes to an end, we might hope for some reprieve for foxes. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen. The ‘off’ season is, in fact, one of the busiest times for the hunt terriermen as they prepare a new set of victims for the autumn. Fox hunting has never been about […]
Origins in Otter Hunting Mink hunting has its roots in the ancient summer bloodsport of otter hunting. This cruel activity flourished in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, but the hunters had run out of otters to kill by the 1970s. Habitat destruction, hunting, and the use of DDT pesticides had driven the species to the […]
Wiltshire Hunt Sabs speak to the Hunt Saboteurs Association. A week last Saturday, Wiltshire and Reading Sabs paid a visit to the closing meet of the Avon Vale Hunt. We have sabbed this hunt numerous times this year, and really are hurting them on and off the field, without a single punch being thrown – […]
Saturday might be the most prestigious day for fox hunters, but for hardcore supporters, mid-week is where the real action is. It’s easy to see why. The countryside is so much quieter mid-week, with fewer members of the public around to ask awkward questions. Almost all hunts therefore have a mid-week meet, with some gathering […]
Guest post from South Wales Hunt Sabs, giving their view on the momentous news that the Banwen Miners have left the MFHA. Clive Rees has announced that the Banwen Miners Hunt have left the Masters of Fox Hounds Association (MFHA) and are instead joining the Masters of Draghounds and Bloodhounds Association with the intention of […]
Today the Scottish Government has finally published its Hunting with Dogs Bill (Scotland), designed to close the many loopholes of the deeply flawed 2002 Act. The new Bill will prevent more than two hounds being used, clarifies the definition of ‘hunting’, and makes applying for licenses almost impossible. Taken together, these measures will, if passed, […]
