The Mask Slips On Boxing Day Charade

Boxing Day is seen as a big day in the hunting calendar, a day focused on public relations with many hunts parading through town centres and offering a sanitised image of their bloodsport.

With all the added attention, it is often the only day that many hunts actually behave themselves and act within the law. But despite this, some just couldn’t help themselves…

In Lewes, East Sussex, there was a solid and vocal anti-hunt protest against the Southdown & Eridge Hunt that somewhat overshadowed their parade. This drew the attention of a mob of drunken hunt supporters who attempted to start fights, pushing people and throwing racial abuse at one protester, leading to eight hunt supporters getting arrested for a range of offences.

A heavy blanket of fog across much of the country put an early stop to the day for many hunts, meaning some simply returned to their kennels after the town centre charade or packed up after a short hunt.

Even so, the HSA still received huge numbers of reports from the public, ranging from hounds rampaging through gardens in Devon, a hunt dangerously riding on foggy roads with no visibility in Cambridgeshire, and hunt supporters boasting online of foxes killed at a hunt in south Wales. In Somerset, the Blackmore & Sparkford Vale (BSV) Hunt was stopped from hunting two foxes by North Dorset and Mendip Sabs, despite the huntsman and whip using their horses against a lone sab.

A Hunt Saboteurs Association spokesperson commented,

“It didn’t take much for the mask of respectability to slip on hunting’s ’big day.’ There’s a reason that hunts don’t invite the public or press along to the many hundreds of normal hunting days throughout the rest of the season, as that’s where illegal hunting, animal cruelty and violence to anyone who dares voice opposition is commonplace, but this was on show even on the PR spectacle that is Boxing Day.

It’s time the Government makes good on their popular election promise to ban the smokescreen of ‘trail hunting’ and close the loopholes in the Hunting Act – to end the cruelty, chaos and criminality for good.”