Today the ever-shrinking hunting world will gather at the east of England Showground near Peterborough for their annual Festival of Hounds. For decades, this event was known as the Festival of Hunting but – as so often in the hunting world – language has been changed to hide their real intent.
Fittingly, the Festival is now run by the inept British Hound Sports Association, itself
a lame rebrand of the Hunting Office – the organisation that promotes trail hunting as
a “smokescreen” to conceal illegal hunting. Predictably, one of the foxhound judges
this year is Hunting Office Webinar star Richard Tyacke, while BHSA luminary and
convicted foxhunting criminal Julian Barnfield will deliver a demonstration of hound
judging.
Considering the ongoing Coniston Foxhounds case and the recent conviction of the
Stowe School Beagles – where youngsters were visibly involved in killing hunted
animals – it is troubling to note that the event includes a Young Handlers Class which
“was introduced to celebrate the many young people that help in kennels.” Over
twenty years after the passing of the Hunting Act why are youngsters still being
inducted into the world of hunting?
Despite the claim that this is a ‘Festival of Hounds’, the welfare of hunt animals is
way down the list of priorities. The event’s own website advises that “due to the
expected high temperatures on the event day, we strongly encourage visitors to
leave pet dogs at home” but the same consideration is not given to hunting hounds
who will be vanned in from across the country and forced to stand around on hot
stone flags to be ‘judged’.
In truth, the Festival of Hounds is just a fig leaf designed to give a respectable
veneer to the squalid world of fox, stag and hare hunting. With the government now
assessing its consultation on how best to ban that other fig leaf – trail hunting – we
must hope that this is the last ever Festival of Hunting…sorry… Hounds.
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