News Round-Up (15th Jan 2021)

The impact of the Zoom videos leak continues reverberating.

Warwickshire Hunt ignoring social distancing measures.

On 13th November 2020, the Hunt Saboteurs Association (HSA) published two ‘closed’ Hunting Office webinars. These showed senior members of the hunting industry including Conservative peer Lord Mancroft discussing how to circumvent the Hunting Act in order for hunting to continue as it did before the ban. While a handful of independent and local news outlets carried the news initially, it was ITV running the story on 24th November that launched the news into public consciousness. Then, on 25th November, ITV revealed that a national police taskforce led by Devon and Cornwall Police will investigate the videos and Hunting Office. 

Falling dominoes

The leaks appear to have cut deeply into the hunting industry. It led to a series of landowners banning hunts from their land – at least until the police investigation is completed. These included national landowners such as the Forestry England and National Trust. However, local landowners across England and Wales imposed bans as well.

The highest profile of these was the ban by Peterborough City Council. On 10th December 2020, Peterborough Telegraph reported that the city’s council had voted the previous evening to “do everything within its legal powers to prevent trail hunting, exempt hunting, hound exercise and hunt meets on its land”. Then, on 13th December, ITV reported that H&M owner Stefan Persson had chosen to ban hunts from his 19,000 acres of land across three counties. This came off the back of Reading Hunt Sabs’ 6th December hit report on the Vine & Craven Hunt, but the influence of the webinar leaks can’t be discounted. 

Despite the impact of the webinar leaks, hunts across the UK continued meeting. Amid the global Covid-19 pandemic, West Midlands Hunt Saboteurs highlighted how the Warwickshire Hunt ignored public health concerns. On 19th December 2020, the sab group turned up to the Warwickshire Hunt to discover more than 100 riders disregarding social distancing measures. Video also showed (0:29) one member of the hunt explicitly stating that “I don’t give a fuck about Covid”. But, as the Metro reported, this wasn’t the only incident of its kind. On 30th December, Tiverton Foxhounds huntsman Gerald Emmet said (0:05) to members of Devon County Hunt Sabs to: 

Keep back a bit please. I’ve got Covid. You don’t want to come too close to me.

Shite Christmas

The festive period is usually one of the most active for hunts and saboteurs, with several hunting high days including Christmas Eve, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. However, Covid-19’s increasing spread meant that a huge swathe of England and Wales entered tier four restrictions on Boxing Day. Most if not all hunts had already cancelled their Boxing Day parades, but hunting was cancelled completely throughout tier four areas. Hunting continued in Scotland until 5th January 2021. 

Nonetheless, some hunts held their Boxing Day meets leading to some scenes of conflict common to the day. People associated with the Portman Hunt smashed the rear window of a hunt monitor’s car. Dorset Monitor – who was present but not the owner of the car – told The Citro that the: 

Window was catapulted but police refused to search those suspected… [the victim] said police were not taking it any further. The guys involved were masked up and left the scene shortly after

And ITV continued its hunting coverage on 26th November 2020 when it aired footage of the Kimblewick Hunt chasing and killing a fox at an industrial plot in Buckinghamshire. Multiple security cameras at the site captured the huntsman hunting hounds onto a fox before feeding the creature’s corpse back to the hounds. No sabs or monitors were present for this incident. On 30th December, ITV confirmed that Thames Valley Police are investigating the incident. 

With all constituent parts of the UK entering indefinite national lockdowns by 5th January 2021, hunting effectively ceased across the country. A few individual stories did make their way into the public though.

Cats and corvids

On 29th December 2020, the High Peak Harriers reportedly killed a domestic cat named Spider whilst exercising hounds. Speaking to the Independent, Rebecca Bingham, with whom the cat lived, said a hound “clamped” their jaws around Spider and “shook her like a rag doll”. On 4th November 2020, Nottingham Hunt Sabs caught the same hunt chasing a calf while hunting.  

Meanwhile, in Ireland, the huntsman of the Duhallow Hunt in north Cork was reportedly killed by a ‘pet’ stag. Hunt Sabs Ireland explained that the ‘pet’ was a stag kept for carted stag hunting. The group explains that this is: 

when a stag is put inside a mobile cart, then released in a field and chased by hounds and hunters on horses. The stag will run until he is exhausted, the hunt then corners him, recaptures him, and repeats the process next time they wish to hunt him. 

On 6th January 2021, the North Wales Chronicle published an article saying that an unnamed man had been summonsed to court for a Hunting Act offence.  

And finally, the world of shooting has faced disruptions too. Campaign group Wild Justice said on 4th January that “the job description for gamekeepers in England had changed drastically” following its legal challenges. This is because general licences issued by DEFRA no longer permit the killing of corvids “to protect the adults, chicks or eggs of wild Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges”. The impact this has on larsen and ladder traps will be seen over the coming year.

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Headline image via West Midlands Hunt Saboteurs