Hundreds of thousands of people have now seen the horrifying video – shot by heroic Lake District Hunt Sabs – of the Coniston Foxhounds digging out and ripping a live fox to pieces.
One of the most disturbing aspects of the video is the that way that visibly young individuals – who would not even have been born when hunting was made illegal – are most involved in the abuse of the fox.
For example, while it is an older man who uses a terrier location device to find the site of the subterranean battle between fox and terrier, it is the younger hunters who are most enthusiastic in dragging the animals out. And, of course, it is a youth who takes the lead in grabbing the doomed fox by the scruff of the neck and carrying her off to the woods where she is thrown – alive – to the hounds.
The youths and children present are clearly experts in digging out foxes, handling hunted foxes and working with hardened terriers – this is, of course, compelling evidence that the horrors shown in the video are routine practice for the Coniston Foxhounds.
But it is also evidence that these youngsters have been groomed into this criminality by the older individuals on the scene. Like any other Organised Crime Gang, the Coniston Foxhounds have been passing on a culture of cruelty and criminality to the next generation.
An HSA spokesperson commented:
“Where was hunting’s self-appointed regulatory body – the British Hound Sports Association – in all this? It goes without saying that any regulatory body worth the name would have picked up on the endemic, cross-generational culture of cruelty and criminality at the Coniston Foxhounds years ago. As always, it took brave hunt saboteurs risking their own safety to bring attention to the depravity that has obviously been going on for years at the Coniston Foxhounds.”
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