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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS
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MONTH: November/December 2007
RSPCA & the League Against Cruel Sports show U.K. pack hunting ban can be enforced
LONDON -- Nearly three years after the Hunting Act 2004 nominally banned fox hunting and other forms of pursuing wildlife with packs of dogs, more people are reportedly participating than before the act took effect. Only one hunt club has disbanded; two new clubs have formed.
"Half of the 10 prosecutions brought under the Hunting Act have not even been against formal fox or stag hunts," scoffed Daniel Foggo and Nic North in the November 4, 2007 edition of The Times of London. "The most recent conviction, in October, was against a gang hunting rats. The police have made clear that they do not see enforcing the hunting ban as a priority. Most of the cases that have come to court have been private prosecutions."
Similar reports appeared a year earlier, 18 months after the passage of the Hunting Act 2004. "The Hunting Act is failing," alleged Guy Adams of The Independent. "Last week, The Independent was invited to follow a typical hunt in a remote corner of Wales. It killed nine foxes, almost all by illegal methods; the previous week's bag had been 13. Supporters of field sports believe the Hunting Act 2004 to be unenforceable, poorly drafted, and riddled with loopholes. Opponents say it is being ignored by many of Britain's 300-odd hunts."
But test cases prosecuted by the League Against Cruel Sports and the Royal SPCA have demonstrated that the Hunting Act 2004 can be successfully enforced, if agencies care to do it. In June 2007, for example, the Bristol Magistrates' Court convicted Quantock Staghounds huntsman Richard Down, 44, and whipper-in Adrian Pillivant, 36, based on video obtained by the League Against Cruel Sports.
Summarized Steven Morris of The Guardian, "Down and Pillivant argued that they were using the dogs to flush deer out to marksmen, which can be exempt under the act. They also claimed they were hunting to control the deer. But district judge David Parsons concluded that they were trying to preserve 'a way of life that the participants and defendants are not prepared to give up."
Down and Pillivant were "supported by the pro-hunting Countryside Alliance," Morris wrote. "The two men were caught hunting illegally in February 2006. At least 17 riders took part, including children. Deer were flushed out on three occasions and six animals were shot. Four dogs were used, two at a time."
In March 2007 the Chester Magistrates Court fined Paul McMullan, 36, nearly £6,000 for using a dog to flush a fox from a badger sett in January 2006. Two other men and a juvenile were sentenced earlier, after accepting plea bargains. Theirs was the first RSPCA prosecution brought under the Hunting Act 2004.
Conservative Party leader David Cameron in February 2007 instructed fellow Conservative members of Parliament to reassure "our friends in the hunting world" that "a Tory government would overturn the Hunting Act as a matter of urgency," if elected. But a Mori poll commissioned by the League Against Cruel Sports, the RSPCA, and the International Fund for Animal Welfare found that 77% of British voters support the Hunting Act 2004.
Amid the ongoing debate over foxhunting, the Department of Food and Rural Affairs in August 2007 quietly moved to placate hunters by lifting restrictions on selling shot game outside the hunting season that had been in effect for more than 170 years.