Pole Position: Derbyshire Hunt Leads the Way in Cruelty and Criminality

The Hunt Saboteurs Association has been passed damning footage of the Derbyshire-based Dove Valley Mink Hounds attempting to illegally hunt and kill mink. The footage, taken last summer, shows hunt staff and others using a long, extendable pole to try to dislodge the animal from a tree.

Mink hunting – a bloodsport made illegal twenty years ago – involves taking a pack of hounds onto waterways to search for and kill American mink. Mink are small, nimble animals and, as well as going down holes, they will seek the sanctuary of trees when hunted by hounds. Incredibly, the Dove Valley Mink Hounds openly carry a long, telescopic pole when they go out hunting – this is clear evidence of their routine intention to break the law.

The member of the public who took the footage spoke to the HSA on the condition of anonymity:

“My attention was drawn by the sound of excited dogs and bugles. I saw a group of people and dogs acting suspiciously near the Longford Brook (this is near Sutton on the Hill, Derbyshire) and so I started filming. Their attention was directed at an area of undergrowth – they had surrounded it and some of the men were beating this area with sticks. They then started to turn their attention to a tree, repeatedly pointing up at it and talking to each other. One of the men had a large red tube which he extended out, making a kind of pole that was around four metres long. They then jabbed at the upper branches of the tree with the pole for ages, as though they were trying to dislodge something. Altogether I filmed them for around 25 minutes before I had to leave the area.”

The HSA is aware that another video of the Dove Valley Mink Hounds knocking a mink from a tree into the jaws of the hounds – this time taken by hunt supporters themselves – is in circulation on sick pro-hunting WhatsApp groups.

An HSA spokesperson commented:

“Local hunt sab groups have repeatedly recorded the Dove Valley Mink Hounds carrying this cumbersome telescopic pole – which can only be for the purpose of knocking mink out of trees- and now, thanks to a brave member of the public, we have footage of them using it. The Hunting Act is so weak that it fails to deter this open criminality, and so, once again, we call on the government to finally tighten it up.”