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Category: national trust

  • The ‘ongoing blatant illegal hunting’ of stags is still happening now

    “The cruelty is clear; the animal is heaving and gasping for breath,” Bobbie Armstrong tells me. She’s showing me footage of an exhausted stag, literally running for his life.

    Armstrong is an animal rights activist and a volunteer for Somerset Wildlife Crime. She goes out on to the hills documenting the horrific hunting incidents that take place in the region. I have interviewed Armstrong a number of times about the UK’s most horrific blood sport: stag hunting.

    Stag hunting is an illegal sport that continues to take place despite people like Armstrong exposing those who engage in the cruel practice. It involves an hours-long chase with hunters using quad bikes, motorbikes, and hounds. The ‘sport’ takes place on Somerset’s Quantock Hills and in other locations in the South-West.

    The Quantocks are owned by various landowners including the National Trust and the Forestry Commission.

    Illegal

    The footage is distressing to watch, and of course the hunt is against the law. Armstrong tells me:

    This stag was hunted by the Quantock Stag Hounds relentlessly. As he had clattered through fields, pursued by hounds and riders, he had become entangled in the crop. Anyone can see that this is an animal who is exhausted, who has run beyond his limits, and is still being forced to run on.

    The hunting ban means that no animal should ever be pursued. It can only be ‘flushed’ out and shot to protect crops, or to relieve it of suffering. It can also be killed in the name of ‘research’.

    Armstrong continues:

    This is not ‘flushing to guns’. This is not relieving suffering by dispatching a casualty. This is not research and observation. This is ongoing blatant illegal hunting. No animal may be pursued by hounds. Period. There is no exemption in the act which permits it.

    Failure of the police and landowners

    It is perhaps unsurprising that despite its illegality, nothing has been done by the police or the land owners to stop stag hunting. After all, the Hunting Act came into force in 2005, but hunters have continued to murder foxes and deer regardless. Armstrong explains:

    It’s happening because of the failure of Avon and Somerset Police to tackle the issue. It’s happening because the National Trust and the Forestry Commission are still turning a blind eye to it. It happens because Natural England are full of empty promises about enforcing the rules regarding vehicles on this Site of Special Scientific Interest, which in itself is a criminal offence.

    For four years we have been raising awareness and highlighting the plight of the deer on the Quantocks. There is NO question that they are hunting them, but until the stakeholders on the Quantock Hills actually take steps to enforce the law, protect the deer and take guns off the hills, this will go on.

    This latest incident of illegal stag hunting took place just a few weeks before the National Trust finally announced that it would ban trail hunting on its land. Trail hunting is when packs lay an artificial trail for hounds to follow – supposedly instead of chasing a real animal. Since 2005, hunters have used trail hunting as a guise to go about real hunting of both foxes and stags. Footage of foxes and deer being murdered had been presented to the National Trust over the years prior to the ban, but the Trust only acted when a top hunter was convicted in court for encouraging others to use trail hunting as a cover for real hunting.

    Armstrong says:

    The National Trust had to accept that the lies of so-called trail hunting had been exposed, and along with it their own plausible deniability.

    They knew what was really going on, all the while thinly veiled by these claims of trail hunting was barbaric illegal hunting.

    “Russian roulette”

    Armstrong is rightly very concerned that one day a member of the public will get injured. She says:

    Two years ago we put Avon and Somerset police and the National Trust and Forestry Commission all on notices regarding the safety issues on the Quantock Hills. Since then, none of them have taken any proactive steps to address what the whole country knows is a smokescreen, but in the case of stag hunting, one that has potentially fatal consequences.

    How many walkers, bird watchers, school excursions or cyclists know that they’re walking on a live firing range up there? They don’t! They have no idea. But the police know, the National Trust know… They are playing a game of Russian roulette with the safety of ordinary folk.

    The Canary contacted the National Trust for comment about the latest footage of the stag being hunted, but so far has received no response.

    While we should be celebrating the news that the National Trust has finally taken steps to ban trail hunting on its land, time will tell whether it actually enforces it. Thankfully we have groups on the ground, such as Somerset Wildlife Crime and local hunt saboteurs, who will continue to expose illegal hunting. It’s through these activists that both the hunting packs and landowners will be held to account.

    Featured image via Somerset Wildlife Crime

    By Eliza Egret

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Thugs beat up activists, and foxes are torn in two. This is the reality of fox hunting.

    Animal lovers across England should be celebrating right now, as the National Trust has declared that it will finally ban fox hunting on its land. But despite the good news, November has been a brutally violent month. Foxes have been murdered across the country, while the activists trying to save them have been physically assaulted and hospitalised.

    Northants Hunt Saboteurs and Hertfordshire Hunt Saboteurs – who are activists on the ground trying to stop illegal hunting – were beaten up at the weekend while trying to prevent a hunting meet from taking place. They say that they were targeted by “masked thugs” and that:

    Sabs were assaulted from the start, one being punched in the side of the head and knocked to the ground and was then kicked in the head whilst down. Another sab was repeatedly assaulted and punched in the face as he held his ground.

    All sabs present were subject to serious threats of violence in the field. Being forced back to the road sabs were knocked to the ground but refused to be marched away.

    The activists went on to say:

    One sab, who had earlier been hit in [the] head, began to feel unwell and it was decided [they] needed to go hospital. Sabs called an ambulance and waited… within a short while hunt thugs…arrived and again assaulted sabs in and outside their vehicle with one female sab being pulled out of the vehicle.

    The saboteurs say that the thugs stole the keys from their vehicle, as well as two camcorders. Camcorders are used by activists to film illegal fox hunting activities, as well as assaults like this.

    Foxes ripped apart

    As awful as this was for the activists, it is, unfortunately, nothing compared to the brutality that has been inflicted on foxes this November.

    Distressing footage from Weymouth Animal Rights on 13 November shows a fox being ripped up by hounds, while another fox was torn in two. Activists say that they managed to save two more foxes from the same fate that day.

    Meanwhile, Devon County Hunt Saboteurs published a different video of a fox being torn up by hounds, while their activists on the ground filmed another incident of a dead fox’s body being carried to a quad bike to be used as a trail for hounds to follow.

    These are just a few examples of the incidents that hunt saboteurs witness across the country, week in, week out.

    A small victory, but there’s still a long way to go

    On 25 November, the National Trust finally announced that it would ban hunting on its land. The decision was made after a top fox hunter was convicted for encouraging others to hunt foxes under the guise of ‘trail hunting’. Trail hunting is when packs lay an artificial trail for hounds to follow, instead of chasing a real fox. But activists have known for years that real foxes are consistently hunted and murdered on National Trust land.

    Rob Pownall, founder of anti-hunting organisation Keep The Ban, told The Canary:

    Finally the National Trust have made the decision they should have made years ago and banned the hunts from their land. The lie that is ‘trail hunting’ is well and truly over and this should prove to be a momentous day when it comes to finally ending the cruel and barbaric pastime of fox hunting for good.

    Natural Resources Wales has also banned trail hunting on its land, as has the Malvern Hills Trust. But a number of land owners, including the Ministry of Defence, haven’t. In fact, the MoD is still handing out licenses to hunt. As the Hunt Saboteurs Association says:

    how can an organisation, funded by taxpayers, continue to licence illegal hunts?

    Whether the National Trust will actually enforce their trail hunting ban remains to be seen. After all, it has repeatedly ignored ample evidence that stags are hunted and murdered on its land. Public pressure, as well as active monitoring on the ground by hunt saboteurs, will be key in ensuring that the ban is upheld. And it is also up to all of us to ensure that big landowners like the MoD and Forestry England follow suit and ban trail hunting for good.

    Featured image via Weymouth Animal Rights / Screenshot

    By Eliza Egret

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Campaigners vow that the National Trust vote is ‘the beginning of the end’ for hunting

    On 30 October, members of the National Trust voted to ban hunting from the Trust’s land. It came after a decade-long campaign to stop one of Britain’s largest private landowners hosting hunts. Campaigners have described the 2021 vote as a “historic outcome”.

    “Trail hunting is a cover”

    Nearly 77,000 National Trust members voted to ban trail hunting during the charity’s 2021 AGM, with just over 38,000 people voting against the ban. The vote is advisory, meaning the charity’s trustees aren’t bound to adopt the vote. But the result sends a stark message that more than 50% of members interested in the topic believe “overwhelming evidence leads to the conclusion that trail hunting is a cover for hunting with dogs”.

    The numbers also stand in contrast to the previous motion on trail hunting. In 2017, just over 60,000 members voted on a motion to ban trail hunting and those in favour of a ban lost by just 299 votes. Anti-hunting campaigners at the time pointed to the intervention of discretionary votes cast by chair Tim Parker, without which the result would have swung in favour of a ban. No discretionary votes were cast for the 2021 vote.

    The campaign that started it

    The Canary spoke to campaign group Stop Hunting on the Nation’s Land, which started its campaign to stop hunts on National Trust land under the name National Dis-Trust. A spokesperson for the group said it was “absolutely thrilled at the historical outcome of the” vote. And when asked about the advisory rather than binding nature of the vote, the group said:

    Although all AGM member’s voting outcomes are advisory, it would be astonishing if the Trust went against the outcome of the 2021 resolution, although we accept that they will now be under huge pressure from the bloodsports lobby.

    The Canary also asked Stop Hunting on the Nation’s Land if it thought the National Trust might find a solution that tries to appease both sides of the vote, much as it did after the 2017 vote with the introduction of a new hunt management and licensing system. It said that the management team was appointed at “a huge cost” of “over £100,000 a year of members’ money”. Furthermore, hunts themselves were “unable or unwilling to comply with the licensing conditions”. As a result:

    This resulted in a dramatic drop in licensed hunts… [and] led to hunts deliberately changing dates or just not showing up, in a bid to escape observation. This middle ground attempt therefore failed, indicating that the Trust can no longer continue to facilitate hunting at any level or in any disguise.

    Guilty

    One significant story that Stop Hunting on the Nation’s Land believes affected the 2021 vote was the trial and prosecution of Mark Hankinson, director of the Master of Fox Hounds Association, just two weeks before the National Trust’s AGM. The group said:

    Aside from the long term campaigning by ourselves and others, we believe the Hankinson trial, with its high profile guilty outcome, has been a great influence on how members voted. It’s thanks to the Hunt Saboteurs Association (HSA) for getting that information [Hunting Office webinars leaked in November 2020] into the public domain, with the trial being held at an opportune moment so that the public were freshly aware that trail hunting is just a smokescreen for illegal hunting.

    The National Trust and other major landowners suspended all hunting licences following the webinar leaks. At the time, the charity had licensed just one hunt, the Old Berkshire Hunt, which stands in contrast to the 79 licenses granted to 69 hunts licensed during the 2016/17 season.

    Efforts of a very small group

    The Canary also spoke to Helen Beynon, who was responsible for instigating the vote during the National Trust’s 2017 AGM. Beynon said she is “jubilant” over the 2021 outcome and believes the charity “can hardly ignore” the message it sends.

    Reflecting on the years between the two votes, Beynon said:

    We were so close in 2017 due, as this time, to the many different groups who came together to campaign to alert members that they could stop animals being killed by hunts. From the HSA, Action Against Fox Hunting, KeepTheBan, and those who’ve suffered threats and criminal damage as a result of their efforts to campaign for animals over many years.

    As it was it remained the work of a very small group of volunteers to hold the Trust accountable for the light touch team they employed to supposedly monitor hunts after the vote. Even though they gave hunts warning and observed them from a single vantage point it was enough to put most of the hunts off. And few applied for licenses in the following year.

    Beynon also cited the HSA’s work in publishing the Hunting Office’s webinars as key to members’ motivations:

    The HSA’s work on bringing the Hunting Office to task has been a big help this year in shining a spotlight on what the Hunting Office call ‘trail hunting’. There’s no place for the hunts to hide reality from National Trust members who keep informed on issues affecting the Trust.

    Reflecting on the outcomes

    The Canary contacted the National Trust for comment on the vote and also asked how it will walk the tightrope between both parties following the overwhelming vote to ban hunting. It responded:

    The votes cast by members on the resolutions are advisory and will help us make decisions in the weeks to come. Later this autumn, our Board of Trustees will meet and reflect on the outcomes of the resolutions. We will update members as soon as possible.

    Countryside Alliance’s Polly Portwin also issued a statement following the vote, saying:

    Today’s vote involved a tiny proportion of the Trust’s membership and is absolutely no mandate for prohibition of a legal activity which has been carried out on National Trust land for generations.

    Adopting the motion would totally undermine the Trust’s own motto: ‘for everyone, for ever.’

    The campaign to finish it

    Stop Hunting on the Nation’s Land has expanded its scope to Britain’s other major landowners including Forestry England, the Ministry of Defence, and water utility companies. Speaking on the potential impact of the National Trust’s members vote, it told The Canary that it believes such landowners are “waiting and watching” and will “take their cue from the Trust”. However, it’s pessimistic about the Ministry of Defence, which continued licensing hunts even after the webinar leaks.

    The group concluded that the National Trust vote was the “beginning of the end” of hunting, and it will continue “to focus our energies on raising awareness of hunting on other areas of publicly owned and publicly funded land”.

    More than 15 years after hunting wildlife with hounds was supposed to have finished, it seems that the efforts of saboteurs, monitors, and campaigners may finally be paying off.

    Featured image via screengrab

    By Glen Black

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Is the conviction a top fox hunter finally enough for UK landowners to ban hunting?

    15 October saw a rare, beautiful moment, when one of Britain’s elites had the book thrown at him. Mark Hankinson, one of Britain’s leading fox hunters, was found guilty of “encouraging or assisting others to commit an offence under the Hunting Act”. Animal rights activists cheered as Hankinson was forced to face the public when he left court.

    The case was brought against Hankinson after he was caught on film encouraging fellow hunters to break the law. In one video, Hankinson said that trail hunting was used as a smokescreen “to portray to the people watching that you’re going about legitimate business”.

    ‘Trail hunting’ is constantly used by hunting packs as a guise to go about real, illegal fox hunting. If they are trail hunting, packs lay an artificial trail for hounds to follow, instead of chasing a real fox. The webinars spelled out what activists have known all along: that since the hunting ban, packs have continued to hunt and murder foxes but have claimed they’re just trail hunting. Campaigners and hunt saboteurs have documented numerous acts of illegal fox hunting since the ban came into force.

    Judge Tan Ikram summed up the case, saying that Hankinson’s words during the webinar were:

    clearly advice and encouragement to commit the offence of hunting a wild mammal with a dog. I am sure he intended to encourage the commission of that offence.

    The Hunt Saboteurs Association (HSA), which exposed the webinars to the public, celebrated the victory. It said:

    Judge Ikram saw through it all. In a withering assessment of Hankinson’s attempts to explain away his lies, Judge Ikram “simply did not find him credible in any of his explanations of the words he used”.

    It went on to say:

    As the HSA has been saying for sixteen years: trail hunting is a sham, a mirage and a smokescreen designed to disguise illegal hunting.

    Hankinson’s punishment was ridiculously lenient. He was fined £1,000, which is pocket money to the majority of fox hunting elites, as well as £2,500 towards legal costs.

    The Canary spoke to Rob Pownall, founder of anti-hunting organisation Keep The Ban. Pownall said:

    While the punishment was unduly lenient, this case well and truly puts to bed the charade that is trail hunting. The judge handing out the sentence couldn’t have summarised it any better, that trail hunting is a “sham and a fiction”.

    Britain’s landowners must ban hunting fullstop

    When the recordings of the webinars came to light, some of Britain’s biggest landowners – namely the National Trust, Forestry England and United Utilities – suspended trail hunting on their land. They said that they would review their decision after the court case had concluded.

    The Canary contacted both the National Trust and Forestry England to find out whether they will finally ban hunting on their land for good. The National Trust sent back their generic non-committal reply that they have released to all media outlets, saying:

    As the court case has now concluded and the defendant has been found guilty, we will digest all the information that has arisen as a result of this investigation before making a decision on whether to resume the trail hunting licence application process.

    Campaign group The National Dis-Trust made a public response, saying:

    What’s to digest National Trust? The hunters have been caught out by the very top in the hunting world?

    Don’t even bother meeting with the criminal organisation the (MFHA) Hunting Office, they have been proven to be liars. They even lied in a court of law. They can not be trusted.

    Ban hunting now, the court have stated quite clearly trail hunting is a sham. Like we have been telling you since 2014.

    The National Trust’s non-committal stance begs two questions: what more evidence can the National Trust possibly need in order to permanently ban trail hunting? And why didn’t it plan for the court’s outcome? The Canary has previously reported on various incidents of illegal fox hunting happening on its land. And as recently as 16 October, hunt saboteurs filmed a pack hunting a fox in the Lake District National Park, more than 20% of which is owned by the National Trust. On top of this, The Canary has reported how the National Trust continues to ignore the ‘sport’ of illegal stag hunting, despite being provided with ample evidence by animal rights campaigners.

    Pownall argued:

    Organisations such as the National Trust and Forestry England have been under pressure from Keep The Ban and anti-hunt campaigners for several years now…

    It is time that landowners stood up for wildlife by standing up to the hunts, and ban all hunting on their land with immediate effect.

    Forest England hasn’t yet replied to The Canary’s request for its stance on trail hunting.

    It is essential, as the landowners deliberate on what to do next, that the public makes their opinion clear. We have had enough of these giant landowners protecting the elite. Now is their chance to step up and ban the charade of trail hunting for good.

    Featured image via Hunt Saboteurs Association

    By Eliza Egret

    This post was originally published on The Canary.