With two weeks to go before the consultation into strengthening the Hunting Act ends, the HSA has obtained new footage which perfectly illustrates the need for a stronger deterrent to hunting wild mammals with dogs.
Relentless Cruelty
Covert cameras captured Grove & Rufford huntsman, Jacob Whalley, preparing for a cubbing meet with terrierman Ste Reynolds. The pair are seen leading two terriers around an active badger sett the day before a hunt meet. The 2025/26 season was Jacob Whalley’s first season as a huntsman, coming fresh from his position as whipper in at the Fitzwilliam Hunt. In July 2025, Whalley pleaded guilty to Hunting Act offences while at the Fitzwilliam.
A newspaper article which covered the conviction listed his address at the time as the Grove & Rufford Hunt kennels, where he will have moved in May 2025. Clearly, this prosecution set a clear intention for the rest of the season. There are two weeks left to finish filling in the consultation, to strengthen the existing law and help to prevent and deter future hunting!
No more exemptions, no more excuses!
You might be sick of hearing it – but why do terriers need to be present on a trail hunt? Well, exactly – they don’t! While hunters might bleat about using terriers below ground for the ‘protection of gamebirds’, this is simply another ruse to continue carrying out one of the most important elements of a fox hunt – terrier work. Terrier work can be mentioned among the many other ‘exemptions’ as a form of conduct or legislative change needed to strengthen the Hunting Act in questions 11 and 12 of the consultation.
You can read about other legal exemptions to the Hunting Act here https://www.huntsabs.org.uk/witness-the-end-of-hunting-removal-of-all-current-exemptions/
Terriers are commonly used in the hunting world to flush out foxes from their sites of refuge; be that a badger sett, fox earth, stick pile or anywhere else the unlucky fox may call home. Once a fox has been flushed, or the terriermen are satisfied with their search of an area, these refuge points will be blocked – just as we see Ste Reynolds doing in the footage, as he used a spade to fill in holes in a sett. This prevents the hunted fox from returning to safety during the hunt meet. Blocking badger setts with earth also puts any badgers who live in the sett at risk of suffocation while trying to free themselves. In the footage, Whalley can clearly be seen carrying nets, suggesting that the pair intend to capture any fox bolted by a terrier for release before the hounds. This in itself is also illegal, aside from the obvious depraved cruelty.
Terrier work results in some of the most grim scenes in hunting. As captured on film at the Kimblewick, Avon Vale, the Coniston and many others.
Taking the piss
If any extra clues were needed as to the pair’s intent, Reynolds is heard asking Whalley for directions on which other holes to block. Whalley instructs Reynolds not to fill in any holes which are “rabbity” and therefore deemed too small for a fox to fit inside.
As if by magic, covert cameras capture Whalley back in the woodland the day after he and Reynolds are filmed using terriers to search for foxes. This time, however, Whalley is dressed in full hunting regalia, blowing a hunting horn with a pack of hounds at his feet.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, in May 2026, just last month, Whalley and Reynolds entered not guilty pleas at Nottingham Magistrates Court for offences committed under the Badger Act 1992. We’ll leave you to imagine what they were up to in that instance.
Sheffield Hunt Saboteurs reported multiple findings of blocked setts at Grove and Rufford meets in hit reports during last season. Some instances resulted in landowners receiving a knock on the door from their local bobby.
Crocodile tears
News of the ‘trail hunting ban’ had many in the hunting community crying false tears; much like the trails they have claimed to lay for twenty plus years these are put on for show in the hope that it won’t get more difficult to chase and kill animals with hounds.
We must remember that the phrase ‘trail hunting ban’ is again a sham. Used to discredit the strengthening of the Hunting Act as pointless legislation which outlaws a harmless activity.
The Grove & Rufford had a little whinge online, trying to defend the life Whalley had chosen since the tender age of sixteen. Whalley is one of many current hunt staff who in their early thirties. With the hunting ban passed in 2004, this puts them at the age of around ten when hunting was banned. In essence, these people were not old enough to enter into hunt service while it was legal and barely keep up the pretence of trail hunting.
While this serves as yet another reminder to fill in the consultation, it also serves once again to show that boots on the ground will always be necessary – whatever blood sport we are tackling.
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