Saturday was a long day! We sabbed four hunts. We started off at the Lamerton Hunt’s morning cubbing meet at Brinsabach Lane near Brentor. Scent conditions were ideal for hunting, but our presence caused the hunt to pack up straight away. We later heard they were headed back to that meet in the afternoon, but we were with another hunt by that point. Fortunately, it was a very warm afternoon so conditions would have been less ideal for hunting.
While we were with the Lamerton, we received a tipoff that Eggesford Hunt were once again causing chaos near North Tawton, hunting on and around Crooke Burnell. We later heard from locals that hunt vehicles had been dangerously blocking traffic on the busy A3072 all morning, and police had to be called. When we arrived we found hounds drawing a small copse between Crooke Burnell and Halse Farm. We encountered landowner Duncan Tucker and his father Martin, who rode their horse and quadbike at our foot sabs. Duncan threatened to knock one of our female sabs out and insisted he could “do what he likes” on his land. He obviously meant assaulting sabs and hunting foxes, but we’re pretty certain he lives by that rule more generally. Duncan called police, falsely claiming that we were threatening his son and damaging his crops. Police arrived to establish that we were doing no such thing and the hunt soon packed up.
By now it was early afternoon and we had plans to sab a big joint meet of the South Devon and Dart Vale Hunts near Totnes, so we left our drone team in the area to watch Eggesford finish while the rest of us headed south. Lunch was eaten en route! We arrived just as the Dart Vale hounds were being unboxed from the van at Langham Farm in Ashprington. Hunt staff made a point of announcing that “trails have been laid” and that their intention was to hunt within the law. With about twenty riders and the same number of foot followers they headed east from the meet and spent the entire afternoon drawing the narrow, dense bits of wood lining Bow Creek.
At one point terriermen were lined up in a small gap in the strip of woods lining the river, with hounds heading in their direction. The terriermen’s role was to push back any fox that tried to escape and to indicate to the huntsman if one was seen. When huntsman and hounds got to their location they shook their heads, confirming that no fox had come through. They’d obviously forgotten all about what trail-hunting is supposed to look like.
It was an exceptionally warm afternoon and scent conditions had deteriorated. Hounds only found scent on a few short occasions and we didn’t see any foxes at all. There were a number of hares though, and sabs witnessed half the pack coursing a hare at one point. We have no doubt the hunt would have let them kill the hare if we hadn’t been there.
We spent most of the afternoon monitoring the movement of the hounds, who ended up scattered all over the place, and declining bizarre requests from hunt riders to open gates for them. Hunts are banned from National Trust land, but this didn’t stop the hunt from casting hounds repeatedly into National Trust-owned Crownley Wood.
Convicted thug George Bailey made a brief appearance and announced that he’d come to smash our heads in but we didn’t see him again after that. We can only assume he either drowned in the mudflats of the creek or evaporated from the heat.
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