Today we joined sabs from North Dorset Hunt Saboteurs, attempting to prevent the senseless killing of yet another defenceless stag on Exmoor by the Devon and Somerset Staghounds.
We arrived at the meet just before 8am. It seems the Devon and Somerset, terrified of our presence last season are starting a lot earlier in the day in an attempt to deter sabs from further afield attending.
It didn’t take them long for the support to clock our vehicle, so we parked up and walked around the perimeter of the showground. We noticed that despite the hot weather, there were roughly 50 or so riders, and at least 12 relay hounds. You would think these apparent animal lovers would have some consideration for these animals they claim to hold so dear.
As we were about to complete the loop around the showground, we were spotted by several of the support, and as we were leaving the meet a supporter in a panicked state came running up to us saying that we had no permission to be on the show ground and that we must leave immediately. “I’d like to remind you, balaclava’d or not, you’re on private property and you must leave” despite the fact we were literally following the signs for the exit of the grounds.
We made our way back to the vehicle, and after realising the direction the hunt was departing in, we decided our best chance was to head near Little Ash Farm, as we had seen support gathering there whilst driving to the meet, and surprise surprise the area was littered with support desperate to get a glimpse of a Stag running for its life.
We decided north of this was the place to go in on foot, and no more than a handful of seconds later we hear something along the lines of “Excuse me, please can you get on the footpath, this is private land”. It was our friend from earlier, who proceeded to immediately fall over a fence, face first into the dirt. All this despite us being mere metres from a bridleway that crossed the field we were in.
From this field we saw the hunt observing the valley from all sides, so we made our way down into the valley with our new friend in tow, who at this point was getting a bit too touchy feely for our liking. As we approached the base of the valley it was evident that the huntsman was drawing Curr Cleeve along the top of the valley, so we decided to stay in the area and see how it developed.
For what felt like hours they continued to draw the valley, the hounds picking up on a scent then losing it. This continued until it seemed the hounds had lost the scent for good, as they went silent for a prolonged period. It was at this point the hunt had proceeded to send people into the bracken on foot to try and scare the stag out, tongue-rolling and hollering to try and spook him into breaking. It didn’t take long for a hind to break and run for it. Lucky for them as they were not the intended target. It was at this point we were concerned, expecting the stag to break at any moment, yet as time passed it became apparent that the stag was either not there, or they had managed to outsmart the hunt and stay hidden.
The hunt then decided to give up the search for the stag in this area and move south of the road, where they began to draw around Great Ash Wood, with support covering the area surrounding The Punchbowl and Burrow Wood (where they hunted during their closing meet of last season). This didn’t last long as riders appeared to shoot off to the north back towards the meet. There was mixed messaging as several riders claimed to be boxing up and leaving (which some did) and support looked completely uninterested, many of which also started to head home.
We decided to drive back to the meet, but we couldn’t tell if they were genuinly packing up or went for another attempt in the valley from earlier in the day, so we headed back to where we went in on foot earlier, and we found them again. It appears they must have had people stay behind to keep lookout in case the stag reappeared.
We jumped out the vehicle and made our way into the field to be told immediately by a passing supporter that we weren’t allowed in the field as it’s private property, to which we responded that we were clearly on a footpath. This prompted a response from another supporter, where they told us “It’s a bridlepath actually!”. The other supporter quickly drove off without muttering a single word, clearly embarrassed that they were made to look a fool by another supporter.
Making our way back into the valley we happened upon our friend again walking back in the direction of the road, clearly not bothered much by our presence anymore, and looking visibly frustrated. We were soon made aware that the end of day had potentially been called, so we made our way back up to the road, seeing all the support and riders doing the same. They had all begun to pack up at roughly 11:30, and since they left the meet at around 8:30, it meant they only hunted for 3 hours. Quite a pathetic showing for the new huntsman, Gary Boon.
We are almost certain that the DSSH didn’t kill today, which is heartening considering they have killed at least twice in the last 7 days, one of which involved a stag being run over with a quad bike.
This meet was a special one as they had offered free attendance to some attendees of the Exford show the previous day, in an attempt to get more people in on this sick blood sport. Let’s hope the poor show today put any potential new supporters/riders off for good.
Despite the continued failings of the DSSH today it wasn’t all plain sailing. There were several threats of violence made towards sabs today, luckily none of which materialised into anything, but it’s even more evidence that these bloodthirsty individuals have no limit to how low they will stoop to prevent their ‘fun’ being disrupted.
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