HSA News

On Saturday two hare-hunting beagle packs linked to educational institutions were stopped by hunt saboteurs.

In Northamptonshire, the seldom seen Stowe Beagles (part of the prestigious boarding school of the same name) were packed up by Beds & Bucks Hunt Sabs.

And in Gloucestershire, the often sabbed Royal Agricultural College Beagles (linked to the Royal Agricultural University) were stopped by Severn Vale Hunt Sabs.

On Wednesday 2nd October 2024, with Mendip and Somerset Sabs attended a meet of the Weston & Banwell Harriers with West Somerset Vale Hunt near East Huntspill.

After hunting a maize field, the hunt moved on to a patch of brambles and scrub next to Straight Drove and Cripps River. Whilst members of Somerset Sabs filmed from the ground, the Mendip drone unit launched the drone to observe the hunt from above. What sabs witnessed was unequivocally illegal fox cub hunting, and completely blows any pretence of the charade of trail hunting out of the water.

The HSA can exclusively report that a member of the public has been seriously injured by a North Yorkshire hunt.

On the 5th of November 2022, Gabrielle Jagger was walking down a bridleway when she saw the Pendle Forest & Craven Hunt coming in the opposite direction. She moved off the bridleway, leaving the hunt metres to pass. As they passed Gabrielle, a horse called Duke kicked out, hitting her in the pelvis and throwing her into the air. The rider, Bryony Fearnley, fled the scene, leaving no contact details, but other riders stopped to give assistance.

Following the HSA’s devastating exposure of the Axe Vale Harriers digging out a fox, we have been passed new video showing the Wrexham-based Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn Hunt using terriers to locate foxes in a badger sett.

In those heady days, when many in the hunting world still believed they were safe from our attentions the hunters were a little more honest about what happens in the early part of the season with beagle and basset packs. They meet in the early mornings or late afternoon, as with cub hunting with foxhunts, to avoid the heat of a late summer’s midday.

The unscrupulous fox hunters have attempted to conceal their cub hunting by rebranding it as “autumn” hunting. However, beaglers know that hunting young hares is so abhorrent that they simply deny it takes place.

Today the HSA is releasing a longer version of the horrific video in which the Axe Vale Harriers terrier gang were filmed digging a fox from a badger sett.

In case you didn’t know – and you almost certainly didn’t – Saturday was National Trail Hunting Day, better known as Smokescreen Saturday. Organised by the pro-hunt British Hound Sports Association, the much-vaunted event was billed as “the day we begin to change minds” on the legitimacy of trail hunting.

Hunting has effectively been stopped on Ministry of Defence (MOD) land, with the issuing of licences to hunts currently suspended.

In a Freedom of Information request seen by the Hunt Saboteurs Association (HSA) last week, the MOD confirmed that 11 hunts had applied for licences to use MOD land for so-called ‘trail hunting activities’ ahead of the new hunting season, but that no licences had been issued.

The recently released footage of terriermen from the Axe Vale Harriers pulling a fox and an injured terrier out of a badger sett once again draws into question the legitimacy and authority of hunting’s so-called ‘governing body,’ the British Hound Sports Association (BHSA).

Just two days before National Trail Hunting Day – the farcical event that has become known as Smokescreen Saturday – we release damning footage of what one of the participating hunts gets up to when police, politicians and journalists are not invited to attend.

HSA is today releasing covert footage captured of members of Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn’s Hunt (aka the Wynnstay Hunt) blocking active badger setts ahead of a hunting day.

One of the key organisers of National Trail Hunting Day – or Smokescreen Saturday, as it has come to be known – has multiple convictions under the Hunting Act.

Hunts have already been caught out, sneaking out at the crack of dawn to participate in one of their dirty little secrets – cubbing – otherwise known as cub hunting, or dressed up by the hunters as ‘autumn hunting’.