“If you don’t like illegal foxhunting, get out of the countryside or else….”. That was the attitude of the Eggesford Hunt summarised by several of their members on Wednesday.
We made a special mid-week visit to their meet at Morchard Road. They set off with their hounds and three riders towards Southcott and began flushing foxes in all directions around the farms between there and Spirelake. Sabs were on hand to intervene and ensure those foxes got away to safety.
Sabs following the hunt up a footpath north of Ash Bullayne encountered the landowner of Woodparks screaming and aiming a gun at them. Sabs ran north after the hunt and escaped unharmed. Thankfully this isn’t America and shooting people on a public footpath isn’t legal, yet, so the police armed response came out to speak to the landowner. However, without HD footage from a bunch of different angles, as always, it’s unlikely any action will be taken, so we left them to it and caught up with the hunt.
They had by now moved east to hunt around Rolstone Barton, an area we know well from when the badger cull was taking place around here. Judging by the stench and the thick layers of cattle excrement covering every path around his land, thefarmer has clearly done nothing to tackle the absolute state of his farm, so we’re not surprised that he continues to suffer from TB breakdowns. In fact, he had a herd breakdown just last month. It beggars belief that farmers who preach about the devastation of bovine TB will nevertheless allow a pack of hounds to rampage across their TB-infested land, spreading the disease to neighbouring farms.
The hunt headed gradually back in direction of Morchard Road, drawing coverts around Weeke and Sharland Farm and then turning north towards Pepper Lake. Hounds, encouraged by the horn and voice calls of huntsman Jason Marles, hunted the scent of a fox into someone’s garden, not once but twice! On the second occasion one of our sabs spotted the fox and was able to ensure the fox got away. Fortunately the hounds appeared to get onto the heel line of the first fox, heading in the wrong direction.
It looked as though the hunt would be packing up, so we headed back out to the road and bumped into an elderly local couple who asked if we had seen the Master. Apparently the hounds had been in and out of their garden, knocked one of them over and terrorised their dog. And this was the second time this had happened this month. When the couple approached Jason Marles to demand an explanation he didn’t have much to say other than “I’ll come round later and put it right”.
The attitude of the Eggesford Hunt (as if it’s not already demonstrated by their actions!) was summarised by two elderly hunt followers stood beside Jason at the time, one of whom told the couple that if they didn’t like hunting “you shouldn’t be living there then”. The other said “you’ll have to get used to it”. They really don’t help themselves!
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