HSA News

A couple of weeks ago, the HSA reported on the merger of two of the south east’s last remaining fox hunts. The new outfit will be known as the ‘Southdown & Eridge with East Sussex & Romney Marsh Hunt.’ Not exactly catchy, is it?

The Royal Agricultural College Beagles are the student hare hunt of the Royal Agricultural University based in Cirencester. They have been feeling the pressure recently, with 7 hunting days lost to sabs so far this season. Frustrated, on Saturday they turned to the age-old hunt tactic of intimidation.

The Somerset-based ‘Weston & Banwell with West Somerset Vale Hunt’ deliberately hunted and killed a fox last Wednesday, the 31st January. Sabs from Mendip, Bristol, and Somerset groups were in attendance and saved several other foxes throughout the day.

Last Thursday, Channel 4 News screened an extended report on illegal fox hunting in the UK. One horrifying sequence – supplied to Channel 4 News by the HSA – shows members of the Wiltshire-based Avon Vale Hunt digging a fox from her underground refuge and throwing her to the hounds.

Last night, the nation watched in horror at Channel 4 News once again exposed illegal fox hunting across the UK. One of the most distressing sequences – supplied to Channel 4 News by the HSA – shows a terrierman dragging a terrified fox from her refuge and throwing her to the feet of the pack.

It may be a new year, but hunts are still illegally hunting foxes, using violence and causing road chaos. And some are even invited on to MOD land to do so!

It’s official! The BHSA has confirmed that the Southdown & Eridge Hunt and the East Sussex & Romney Marsh Hunt are merging together! This great news means that there will now be one less fox hunt in the South East.

This season the campaign to close the Cottesmore Hunt has grown stronger. Every fundraiser has been targeted, a week of action was held during the cubbing season as we sabbed them five times during that week and we have been hitting them more often at their midweek meets.

But with this success comes a price and when dealing with the most notoriously violent fox hunt in Britain over the last five years then there was only going to be one outcome. Hunt Violence.

Last September ‘rent a thugs’ appeared at the Blackmore and Sparkford Vale Hunt, assaulting Sabs from Weymouth Animal Rights (WAR) and stealing equipment. They have now been charged with assault and theft by Dorset Police.

Just a week after two hounds belonging to a Dartmoor hunt were run over and killed on a public highway, another gruesome scene emerged from within Dartmoor National Park on Saturday when the Lamerton Hunt disembowelled a fox in front of Plymouth & West Devon Hunt Sabs.

It’s a New Year, and hunts are dreaming up new ways to try to hide their illegal activities. When Calder Valley Hunt Sabs rolled up to a meet of North York & West of Yore Hunt near Catterick, North Yorkshire on Saturday it was immediately clear that fox hunting was in progress. The terrier crew were seen on quad bikes, with the classic set-up of a terrier box on the front and a storage locker – containing spades, digging bars, and the other tools of their vile trade – on the back.

Followers of the South Down & Eridge, with East Sussex & Romney Marsh hunt attacked a stranded Hunt Sab vehicle New Years Day. One member of South Coast Hunt Saboteurs was hospitalised, and the vehicle was left with all but one of its windows smashed.