As sab groups across the country focus on the last remaining mink packs, the HSA takes a river trip down memory lane to look at the campaign against the notorious Ytene Mink Hunt. Following the ban on otter hunting in 1978, the Dorset-based Courtenay Tracy Otterhounds had rebranded as the Ytene, taking their mysterious new name from the Anglo-Saxon term for the New Forest.
Mink packs have always attracted the nastier hunt supporter, and, in the early 1990s, there was no pack rougher than the Ytene. Epitomised by their fearsome huntsman, the 6’ 5’’, black-bearded Tony Smart, the pack acted as a magnet for aggressive hunt thugs from across the southwest. Tony quickly attained legendary status in sab circles: no one who was there will forget the time he threw a five-bar gate – with three sabs clinging on – over the spire of Salisbury Cathedral.
But hunt sabs have never shied away from such challenges and, by 1991, the sporadic sabbing of previous years had evolved into an organised campaign. Determined local sabs disrupted almost every meet: sometimes the Ytene would pack up but, more often, sabs had to take to the river to mask the water-borne scent of mink or protect a den. They quickly learnt that staying mid-stream was also the best way of avoiding the police, whose commitment to law and order did not extend to getting their feet wet.
By June, the hunt had stopped advertising their fixtures in Horse and Hound magazine and took to meeting at random times instead. Sabs responded by staking out the kennels and using motorbikes – which couldn’t be blocked in by hunt vehicles – to tail the hound van. This tactic, together with several kennel blockades, ruined the ‘sport’ right through the summer. But hunt masters Rose Whitcombe and Bob Tucker were getting organised and were amongst the first hunts to employ ‘agents of the landowner’ tactics that presaged the nationwide deployment of hunt stewards.
The 1992 season was another hard-won success, with the Ytene being sabbed on 24 occasions, including most Saturdays. They responded by further escalating the violence: sling shots were now routinely fired at sabs and tractors rammed sab vans off the road. The police, when not taking tea with the hunt, busied themselves by arresting the victims of these serious crimes. Undeterred, sabs carried on.
By 1993, the Ytene were drafting in yet more thugs from the New Forest Foxhounds. This crew’s specialism was the organised ambush: first, soften up your target with catapults and a fusillade of house bricks, then move in with cudgels to finish the job. One such ambush in 1995 resulted in ten sabs being hospitalised.
Hunt sabs from across the country met these challenges head-on by traveling to Dorset to support their comrades whenever they could. At one very eventful meet, a dig-out had to be abandoned when the Ytene’s spades ended up at the bottom of the River Frome. On another inspiring occasion, outnumbered locals found themselves cornered by Ytene thugs, when Bolton, Liverpool and Oxford sabs suddenly swarmed over the horizon to even out the odds.
These days it’s a very different story.
Sabs still approach every mink hunt with caution, but the truth is that the handful of packs still in existence now have very few supporters. As for the Ytene, they have reverted to their old otter-hunting name, but in all other respects they are a shadow of their former selves. Tony Smart’s beard is now a grizzled grey and it’s been some time since he chucked anyone over the spire of Salisbury Cathedral.
However, the remaining packs are still out there, hunting down mink and otters throughout the summer. Hunt sabs will be out there too, doing everything they can to stop them – so, please, support their work by joining the Hunt Saboteurs Association!
We are the only organisation that works directly in the field to save wildlife through direct action.
