The Hunt Saboteurs Association has produced a booklet titled ‘Witness The End Of Hunting’ which outlines our plans to stop hunters in their tracks or – at least – get them into court with a high chance of prosecution.
In this third article, the HSA looks at our proposal to ban trail hunting for an artifical scent – animal-based or otherwise – to prevent trail hunting being used as a smokescreen for actual hunting.
When the Hunting Act 2004 came into force, the hunting community claimed to have created a new activity they called ‘trail hunting’. They offered no explanation as to how they had suddenly trained hounds to a new scent or even what that scent was. This allowed the creation of a ‘smokescreen’ to cover their illegal activities.
Although the Hunt Saboteurs Association was the first to highlight this as an issue just weeks after the law came into force, it took other animal welfare groups over three years to recognise the law was being subverted. Hunts claim a number of substances are used, mainly fox urine which, although freely available on the internet, is illegal to import into the UK without a license. Other claims are fish oil, aniseed and even the terrier men’s own urine.
The leaked Hunting Office training webinar, published by the HSA in 2020, caused a national scandal and resulted in the collapse of hunting’s governing body. The discredited organisation – run by the same people and from the same premises – was then rebranded as the British Hound Sports Association.
The webinar explained how to hide illegal hunting by performatively laying smokescreen trails in front of observers.
Masters of Foxhounds Association Director Mark Hankinson advised attendees that:
“It’s a lot easier to create a smokescreen if you’ve got more than one trail layer operating and that is what it’s all about, trying to portray to the people watching that you’re going about your legitimate business.”
To prevent these activities, we are proposing the banning of trail hunting using an artificial scent, animal-based or otherwise.
The government has committed to banning trail hunting in its manifesto – our proposal is the only way to eliminate this practice.
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