Fox hunting suspended by landowners
Discussion
In what appears to be a perfect example of being 'Hoisted with your own petard', the organisations who control and promote fox hunting have just done more to end it than anyone else has done in the 16 years since the Hunting Act of 2004.
The Masters of Foxhounds Association (MFHA) and The Hunting Office (HO), who are responsible for organising and controlling Fox Hunting across the UK, have been recorded discussing the best ways to break the law, the best ways to throw the public and the Police off the scent, how to destroy and conceal evidence, all while while admitting that 'trail hunting' is of course just a front for actual fox hunting with dogs.
It was a private 3 hour Zoom meeting which involved over 180 people, including Conservative peers, 150 Hunt Masters from across the country, plus pretty much anyone who is important in hunting.
The Zoom meeting was somehow accessed and recorded by an anti-hunting activist group, who then published it.
Clips from the video show things such as:
1) 2 Ex-police inspectors and Police countryside liaison officers giving advice on how to destroy evidence, use throwaway phones, and how to create the best 'smokescreens' to prevent the public from being able to witness and report crimes.
2) Blatant admissions that illegal fox hunting with dogs is continuing unabated under the long running facade of 'trail hunting'.
3) Discussions on the best methods to continue illegally hunting with dogs to avoid detection and prosecution.
4) Discussions on how to run several trails and packs at once to fool the public into witnessing what appear to be legal hunts while the other packs carry on chasing foxes.
5) Advice for all involved on what too say and how to pretend that fox hunting is not actually occurring in plain sight.
As as result of this video being made public, several major landowners have now withdrawn permission for hunts to operate on their land.
These landowners include:
Forestry England
United Utilities
The National Trust
The Lake District National Park
Natural Resources Wales
This now puts several million acres of land out of bounds for hunters, and it is expected that in light of the leaked video, many more landowners including private landowners, will follow, because it is an offence under the 2004 Hunting Act to permit anyone to knowingly allow their land to be used for banned hunting purposes. The offence is 'assisting hunting'.
With this video circulating, it is now difficult to claim, as a landowner, that you did not know that the hunting on your land was illegal rather than just 'trail hunting'.
Fox Hunting has effectively ended itself, which is really quite remarkable.
The leaked video is here:
https://www.huntsabs.org.uk/mass-criminality-in-hu...
News articles about it here:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tr...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/11/25/licenc...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8991741/T...
(Edited to make it easier to read on mobile devices)
The Masters of Foxhounds Association (MFHA) and The Hunting Office (HO), who are responsible for organising and controlling Fox Hunting across the UK, have been recorded discussing the best ways to break the law, the best ways to throw the public and the Police off the scent, how to destroy and conceal evidence, all while while admitting that 'trail hunting' is of course just a front for actual fox hunting with dogs.
It was a private 3 hour Zoom meeting which involved over 180 people, including Conservative peers, 150 Hunt Masters from across the country, plus pretty much anyone who is important in hunting.
The Zoom meeting was somehow accessed and recorded by an anti-hunting activist group, who then published it.
Clips from the video show things such as:
1) 2 Ex-police inspectors and Police countryside liaison officers giving advice on how to destroy evidence, use throwaway phones, and how to create the best 'smokescreens' to prevent the public from being able to witness and report crimes.
2) Blatant admissions that illegal fox hunting with dogs is continuing unabated under the long running facade of 'trail hunting'.
3) Discussions on the best methods to continue illegally hunting with dogs to avoid detection and prosecution.
4) Discussions on how to run several trails and packs at once to fool the public into witnessing what appear to be legal hunts while the other packs carry on chasing foxes.
5) Advice for all involved on what too say and how to pretend that fox hunting is not actually occurring in plain sight.
As as result of this video being made public, several major landowners have now withdrawn permission for hunts to operate on their land.
These landowners include:
Forestry England
United Utilities
The National Trust
The Lake District National Park
Natural Resources Wales
This now puts several million acres of land out of bounds for hunters, and it is expected that in light of the leaked video, many more landowners including private landowners, will follow, because it is an offence under the 2004 Hunting Act to permit anyone to knowingly allow their land to be used for banned hunting purposes. The offence is 'assisting hunting'.
With this video circulating, it is now difficult to claim, as a landowner, that you did not know that the hunting on your land was illegal rather than just 'trail hunting'.
Fox Hunting has effectively ended itself, which is really quite remarkable.
The leaked video is here:
https://www.huntsabs.org.uk/mass-criminality-in-hu...
News articles about it here:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tr...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/11/25/licenc...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8991741/T...
(Edited to make it easier to read on mobile devices)
Edited by anonymous-user on Sunday 29th November 14:06
I think we all believed that the content of the video was always being conducted but to actually witness it , and the arrogance and duplicity employed ,is quite staggering .
I could never understand the attraction in fox hunting apart from a select few being able to act like 19th century gentry displaying their wealth and power to the peasantry.
Like public hanging ...it should be confined to the past .
I could never understand the attraction in fox hunting apart from a select few being able to act like 19th century gentry displaying their wealth and power to the peasantry.
Like public hanging ...it should be confined to the past .
I’m from a pro hunting background and as an impressionable 18 year old actually went on the countryside alliance march in London. I don’t hold those views anymore.
Not that I’m hugely anti hunting but the amount of lies that the hunting fraternity have told over the years really annoy me.
This video doesn’t surprise me too much following on from the video years ago of the hunt that was breeding foxes. Or the fact that a few years ago I was in a pub in the dales with my pro hunting parents and an acquaintance of theirs was drunkenly telling them much the same. I must have had a concerned look on my face as he turned to me and asked if I was anti hunting and that he didn’t give a “f
k” if I was. Nice people...
Not that I’m hugely anti hunting but the amount of lies that the hunting fraternity have told over the years really annoy me.
This video doesn’t surprise me too much following on from the video years ago of the hunt that was breeding foxes. Or the fact that a few years ago I was in a pub in the dales with my pro hunting parents and an acquaintance of theirs was drunkenly telling them much the same. I must have had a concerned look on my face as he turned to me and asked if I was anti hunting and that he didn’t give a “f
k” if I was. Nice people...Edited by PeteinSQ on Sunday 29th November 12:20
Edited by PeteinSQ on Sunday 29th November 13:19
Living on Exmoor, the sheer arrogance of the foxhound mob is disgusting. They have little respect for property of permissions, the stupid inbred farmers that 'follow' the hunt park, sorry, abandon Landrovers, trailers, quads and horseboxes everywhere. They care about nothing except to show how superior they are.
Had one on horseback down my lane last year, trespassing on my land. Apparently looking for a couple of hounds that had got lost. My arse! Told him he was trespassing, had no.legal right to be on my land and I would take reasonable steps to remove him and any of his companions should they venture onto my land again. Haven't seen them since, so obviously I'm in their naughty book.
Had one on horseback down my lane last year, trespassing on my land. Apparently looking for a couple of hounds that had got lost. My arse! Told him he was trespassing, had no.legal right to be on my land and I would take reasonable steps to remove him and any of his companions should they venture onto my land again. Haven't seen them since, so obviously I'm in their naughty book.
I think it was Jeremy Hardy who once made the point that if he and his mates started chasing stuff with their dogs through peoples' back gardens it would be banned overnight...
We don't have a hunt local to me, but when we have our annual farmers' do, quite a few turn up form further afield. They're easy to spot. Couple of times on finding out I'm from Bradford I've been told I can't be, because I'm not a p*ki or a n***er.
Then they get even more pissed and drive home.
We don't have a hunt local to me, but when we have our annual farmers' do, quite a few turn up form further afield. They're easy to spot. Couple of times on finding out I'm from Bradford I've been told I can't be, because I'm not a p*ki or a n***er.
Then they get even more pissed and drive home.
PeteinSQ said:
I’m from a pro hunting background and as an impressionable 18 year old actually went on the countryside alliance march in London. I don’t hold those views anymore.
Not that I’m hugely anti hunting but the amount of lies that the hunting fraternity have told over the years really annoy me.
This vide doesn’t surprise me too much following on from the video years ago of the hunt that was breeding foxes. Or the fact that a few years ago I was in a pub in the dales with my pro hunting parents and an acquaintance of theres was drunkenly telling them much the same. I must have had a concerned look on my face as he turned to me and asked if I was anti hunting and that he didn’t give a “fk” if I was. Nice people...
I have been fairly ambivalent over the years. I've occasionally been Pheasant shooting, so I'm not averse to what you might call 'countryside' pursuits.Not that I’m hugely anti hunting but the amount of lies that the hunting fraternity have told over the years really annoy me.
This vide doesn’t surprise me too much following on from the video years ago of the hunt that was breeding foxes. Or the fact that a few years ago I was in a pub in the dales with my pro hunting parents and an acquaintance of theres was drunkenly telling them much the same. I must have had a concerned look on my face as he turned to me and asked if I was anti hunting and that he didn’t give a “f
k” if I was. Nice people...My parents are middle-class country dwellers, and sometimes took us to see the hunt set off when we were children. I have sometimes been to the traditional Boxing Day hunt meets over the years. Just to see the spectacle of houses and hounds, not really interested in the hunting aspect.
However, ultimately I agree with your comments. The sheer lies, animal cruelty, and their attitude over the years have turned me off it completely to the point where I have no sympathy for them anymore.
I'm half-friendly with a couple of guys from a hunt, including one who served as Master for a while, and they are absolutely blatant about stating that for them, it is purely about setting the dogs on as many foxes as possible. They will use whatever illegal and immoral methods they can to make sure that happens.
I actually did a bit of photography for a couple of countryside magazines a few years ago to capture some beautiful 'traditional' countryside hunting scenes. I attended the hunt as invited by the Master that I knew. The hostility towards me when I got there from the 'regulars' was really eye opening. Until they knew I had been invited by the Master, they were quite happy to ask me "Who the f
k I was" in a very threatening manner. They reason for their anger and hostility became obvious. Under their public veneer of it being a legal, harmless and jolly country pursuit of 'trail hunting', practically everything about their respectable hunt was illegal and immoral, and simply they were a bunch of individuals who mostly wanted to see as many dead animals as possible.
Used to not care either way about it. Now I feel no sympathy whatsoever for them. This was all predictable and inevitable.
What a massive own goal. All the talk on there about not recording evidence of illegal hunting, and there’s a 3 hour long video with statements of how illegal hunts were conducted, instructions on fabricating evidence and avoiding prosecution by former police officers.
Now they can’t even hunt legally (not that any of them were actually trail hunting) on massive swathes of countryside, which will only grow as more private landowners want to distance themselves from flagrant criminality.
Now they can’t even hunt legally (not that any of them were actually trail hunting) on massive swathes of countryside, which will only grow as more private landowners want to distance themselves from flagrant criminality.
Pothole said:
Tyre Smoke said:
Haven't seen them since, so obviously I'm in their naughty book.
Or they're perfectly reasonably abiding by your wishes.Fixed your quote for you.
I have just read that the MOD and Exmoor National Park are now also 'considering their options' regarding allowing Hunting on their land. It wouldn't surprise me if we see more announcements of bans over the coming week.
I can't see any other way this will go than a wholesale ban on hunts using public/government land, and potentially large swathes of private land.
As own goals go, this has to be right up there.
I can't see any other way this will go than a wholesale ban on hunts using public/government land, and potentially large swathes of private land.
As own goals go, this has to be right up there.
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