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In yet another blow to the hunting lobby, two Somerset hunts – the Weston & Banwell/West Somerset Vale Hunt (W&BWSV) and the Taunton Vale Harriers – have been forced to merge in a desperate attempt to survive.
Members of the two hunts gathered at an Emergency General Meeting last Tuesday evening at the Fox and Goose Pub near Highbridge. They met to decide on their future and vote on an amalgamation with the neighbouring Taunton Vale Harriers.
The W&BH & WSVH themselves merged in 2020 in an effort to “maintain hunting in the area”. But with three hunt masters arriving and departing since this merger it is clear that this hunt is struggling and has been for some time.
Last Tuesday’s meeting was attended by a strong contingent of Taunton Vale Harriers supporters and, echoing past tensions, rumour suggests that landowners and farmers once again felt sidelined, having had no say in the outcome. While the merger may secure more country on paper, strained landowner relations could pose challenges for the future of the hunt on the ground.
Sabs await the name of the newly merged pack with interest. As the HSA has previously reported, hunt mergers are always forced and unhappy affairs, with rival factions from the original packs jockeying for power and influence in the new organisation. The ridiculously long hunt names often adopted are a symptom of this problem – supporters don’t want the name of their hunt to die out!
More seriously, concerns now turn to the hounds themselves, with uncertainty over whether they will all be retained as the packs are unified.
An HSA spokesperson commented:
“The news of this latest merger is yet another nail in the coffin for fox hunting in Somerset. Absurdly, the Countryside Alliance like to claim that such mergers show that hunting can ‘adapt to the modern environment’. Like everything else they say, this is nonsense. Hunts are merging up and down the country because nobody supports them anymore – fox hunting is a dying sport.”
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