In March the practice of spring stag hunting in the West Country will start again – though, in reality, it is only for a few short summer months that stags and hinds are left in peace.
Over the last few years, hunt sabs have taken unprecedented action against the three West Country stag hunts, saving lives and exposing the depravity of the hunting, killing and ritual butchery of stags and hinds in our national parks.
In September and October last year the HSA launched an undercover operation by infiltrating all three of these hunts: the Tiverton Staghounds, the Devon & Somerset Staghounds and the Quantocks Staghounds.
Aside from the obvious cruelty involved, this investigation exposes the way that loopholes in the Hunting Act are cynically exploited to allow the continued hunting of deer, twenty years after it was banned.
In particular, the investigation will reveal the way that stag hunts switch between multiple Hunting Act exemptions – on the same day and even during the same hunt – in the pursuit of their quarry.
One minute they claim to be ‘trail hunting’, the next minute they are flushing to guns, rescuing an injured animal or – most absurdly of all – engaged in scientific research.
It would be funny if it were not so sickeningly cruel.
The hunters are constantly adapting to evade accountability or charges: our investigation will reveal why a ban on trail hunting – though urgently needed – will not be enough in itself to stop these hardened, committed hunters in their tracks.
Only our comprehensive set of proposals – based on over sixty years of sabotaging all types of bloodsports – will really end hunting with hounds.
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