Yesterday we remembered animal rights activist Barry Horne, who died 15 years ago while on hunger strike in prison, protesting against the government’s support for animal experimentation and their broken pre-election promises. We act in solidarity with activists around the world who bring attention to injustices against animals, many of whom pay the price with their lives.
“Remember, remember” also had another meaning for us yesterday, as we paid a visit to the opening meet of the East Devon Hunt at TV’s Kirstie Allsop’s house “The Grange” in Broadhembury. We had sabbed this exact meet last year so it was a bit of a deja-vu for the first part of the day. We arrived half an hour before the meet. A member of the hunt committee gestured for our landy to drive up the track towards the manor before she realised who we were and muttered “oops” to herself…
We stuck to the road and sent a team along a footpath to keep an eye on the meet. This time Kirstie Allsop herself was seen handing out drinks to members of the hunt in the grounds of her manor house. The hunt left the meet at midday, and huntsman Darren Beeney cast hounds into the small strips of woodland surrounding the meet. Immediately the pack was scattered all over the place, with hounds running through a field terrorising sheep and others straying onto the road. Once he’d gathered the pack, Beeney took them across the road from Grange Cross and into a scrub-sided valley.
Our ‘whippet squad’ moved into position just as hounds went into cry coming out of the valley, in the exact vicinity of terrierman Lewis Strawbridge, who had been suspicious by his absence up until this point! As soon as he spotted sabs, he ran over to talk to the huntsman who then frantically made a point of calling hounds off the scent. Sabs and huntsman called the pack off but the lead hounds were having none of it. A terrified deer was seen bolting from the valley, but it was clear the hounds were on the scent of a fox as they ran in a line across the road and over a run in the hedge. Our runner team went after them while other sabs were repositioned in the landy to intercept them all the way up at Wolverstone Cross. This is where the hunt departed from the route they took last year and instead headed in the direction of a large badger sett where we had found them illegally sett-blocking and digging-out on Boxing Day 2015.
The whippet squad stayed with huntsman and hounds while other foot sabs got into position at the badger sett, where they were joined by the terriermen on their quadbikes. Beeney was surrounded with the landy team also keeping a watchful eye from a viewpoint and he didn’t bother even encouraging his hounds to hunt at this point. Back out to the road and via some steep-sided woods he then made his way towards the Devon and Somerset Gliding Club, losing hounds and most of his support along the way. We managed to stay ahead of the game with sab teams doing a relay to stick close to the hunt. Staff at the gliding club (which permits access to the hunt!) came out to complain that quadbikes were not allowed on the land. Sabs recommended that they speak to the huntsman but he was still trying his best to put distance between himself and our sabs.
Even in a full circle of Downlands Plantation he couldn’t shake our runners and back at the gliding club another team were already waiting to take over. No hunting occurred in those final two hours of the day and hounds never once went into cry. Sabs followed them via Long-go Lane towards Bowerwood, where we fully anticipated they would attempt to draw the small coverts they have hunted on previous occasions, but to our surprise the hound van was waiting for them there and the hunt packed up. Hunt staff and riders were generally well-behaved. However, several terriermen had illegally covered their quadbike numberplates with tape, and one of the terriermen attempted a drive-by punch at a female sab.
All credit to our foot sabs, who covered a lot of ground and drew compliments from riders on their fitness!
