© 2025 Hunt Saboteurs Association
While the red-coated fox hunters inevitably dominate the Boxing Day media headlines, the festive season is also an important time for hare hunters, who like to squeeze in a few extra meets during the season of peace and goodwill.
Fortunately, this fact is not lost on hunt sabs who have mobilised against hare hunters across the country. Festive action kicked off with a Solstice sab on the De Burgh & North Essex Bassets near Ridgewell. Suffolk & Essex sabs arrived in the nick of time and had to pull hounds off a hare using voice and hunting horn calls.
Boxing Day saw Cumbria’s Black Combe & District Beagles get sabbed at their regular Waberthwaite meet. Lake District sabs predicted their route to a tee and, once the sab drone had been launched, it was all over bar the shouting.
Two days later, the Dorset-based Purbeck & Bovington Beagles were sabbed by Weymouth Animal Rights and Two Counties sabs. The beaglers carried on hunting open fields, but the presence of sabs prevented any kills. At the same time, the De Burgh & North Essex Bassets were caught out again – getting their hounds on leads as soon as black-clad silhouettes from North London and SES were spotted on the horizon.
Severn Vale and Wiltshire sabs had an excellent day against the Royal Agricultural College Beagles on 30th December. Despite the usual attempts at intimidation – and an embarrassingly transparent ‘ruse’ to suggest they had packed up – it was all over by half past two! Having lost a day’s hunting, furious RAC huntsman Will Stubbs joined his posh mates at the Radley College Beagles the following afternoon for a spot of hare hunting in Hampshire. Unfortunately for Stubbs, Surrey and Reading sabs were also in attendance and enjoyed the spectacle of Stubbs and co. sprinting back to the hound van when they realised they’d been rumbled.
Nottingham sabs finished off the festive season in fine style with a successful New Year’s Day sab on the East Lincolnshire Bassets near Wragby. The hunters pulled the hounds out of hare habitat when sabs appeared and commenced the long Walk of Shame back to the van.
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