Yesterday saw us take a trip “up north” to join a mass sab of the Cottesmore Hunt in solidarity with Northants Hunt Saboteurs and Hertfordshire Hunt Saboteurs, whose sab was deliberately run down by a hunt vehicle a few weeks ago. Berkshire Hunt Sabs rode along with us for the day (pleasure sabbing with you guys!).
We joined approx 90 other sabs, flooding the area around the meet at Knossington in Rutland, and kept eyes on the hunt from the roads, fields and sky all day long. Wherever they turned, a group of sabs was waiting for them. In the words of one hunt rider, “they’re bloody everywhere”. Several foxes were seen to safety, including in the vicinity of an SSSI at Forestry-owned Owston Woods. Yes, hunts are banned from Forestry England land, but that doesn’t seem to stop them.
With 18 foxhunts of our own, we don’t often venture far from Devon, so it’s interesting to see what hunts in other counties are like. The Cottesmore are textbook scum: on foot their hired thugs (wearing earpieces, which they must think make them look proper hard) assault sabs and steal their property. Meanwhile the ‘ladies’ on horseback absolutely ooze snobbery. They film themselves hysterically shouting at sabs not to touch their horses, while deliberately using their horses as weapons and riding into people. Apparently WE are the animal abusers. So say the people who get a kick out of watching wildlife torn apart by dogs and who don’t bat an eyelid when one of their hounds sustains horrific horse-induced injuries. A sheep was also left bleeding from the eye after being attacked by the pack, an incident captured on camera by our drone. Collateral damage for the thrill of the chase, apparently.
The police response is also disappointingly similar. Dozens of Leicestershire police cars patrolled the area around where the hunt were meeting yesterday, acting as their private security and turning a blind eye to the blatant hunting happening in the fields. Their uselessness is why sabs exist and why when sabs from another group are at the receiving end of brutal hunt violence, we will always show up.
We’re back in Devon now and will be back to our local hunts this week.
Shout out to the other awesome sab groups who we teamed up with yesterday:
North London Hunt Saboteurs
Peterborough Hunt Sabs
Beds & Bucks Hunt Sabs
Surrey Hunt Sabs
West Midlands Hunt Saboteurs
Nottingham Hunt Saboteurs
Staffordshire Hunt Sabs
Calder Valley Hunt Saboteurs
East Surrey Hunt Saboteurs
Mendip Hunt Sabs
Herefordshire Hunt Sabs
Hertfordshire Hunt Saboteurs
Northants Hunt Saboteurs
Berkshire Hunt Sabs
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