Before the Hunting Act was passed around 50,000 members and supporters of hunting signed the Hunting Declaration, in which they pledged to break the law if hunting was banned. Every week for the past twenty years since the Hunting Act was passed that’s exactly what hunts up and down the country have been doing. Despite a law that bans it, our wildlife continues to be illegally hunted and killed, largely because landowners like Dartmoor National Park, the Duchy of Cornwall, the MOD, Forestry England and other major private landowners continue to turn a blind eye to the blatant illegal hunting happening on their (our!) land.
The Two Bridges Hunt Club, formed of the four Dartmoor hunts (the South Devon, Mid Devon, Dartmoor, and Spooner’s & West Dartmoor) meet around this time every year to mark the anniversary of the ban coming into effect and stick two fingers up at the Hunting Act. This week was no exception.
After backlash from previous years, the Two Bridges Hotel stated that they were not hosting the joint meet of the four Devon hunts this year. However, they were happy to host the fox killers at a pre-hunt dinner the night before.
Instead the hunts met at the East Dart Hotel at Postbridge, Dartmoor, with horse trailers even unboxing in the Dartmoor National Park tourist information car park. It seems this four hunt joint meet could only muster around thirty riders between them.
We were joined by sabs from other south-west groups: Plymouth and West Devon Sabs, North Dorset Sabs, Somerset Sabs, Wiltshire Sabs, Mendip Sabs, South Devon Hunt Sabs and South Devon Animal Rights.
Huntsboy Joe Emmett set off south from the meet towards Dury Farm near Bellever forest. Foot sabs followed in as other teams were deployed to the south. With the terrible conditions for scenting, heavy sideways rain and poor visibility, we were very surprised to find hounds coursing a fox almost instantly, not far from the meet. The fox looked disoriented and bedraggled, running slow and just a few metres ahead of the hounds. Sabs did what they could to try and stop hounds. The fox ran uphill followed by the pack and out of sight. Unfortunately we believe this fox was killed. We also believe this fox was bagged and had been released to provide an easy kill at the start of the day.
As the weather began to clear up, the hunt went on to Riddon Ridge, and then hunted along the East Dart River to Babeny Farm before crossing the river to the Yar Tor side and hunting the scrubby ground south towards Badgers Holt. Sabs kept up with the hunt and disrupted every attempt to draw along the river.
The hunt tried to cast hounds into Snider Park Plantation but sabs were there to turn the hounds back. Moving west across Laughter Tor, hounds began speaking and a fox was seen running for cover in a patch of gorse. Hounds were quick to pick up on the scent of this fox, and with the sodden ground and tussocks it was incredibly hard for our foot teams to keep up with hounds in cry. Hounds proceeded on the line of this fox and as they were close behind, we can’t be sure they got away.
Mummy’s boy Joe Emmett took his remaining field of ten riders through Bellever forest and across the road towards Higher White Tor, where they spent ages doing loops around the tors, picking up on and losing scent. The dirty scum eventually made their way back to Postbridge for a 6pm finish.
Several foxes were seen throughout the day by our different teams, with many of them being filmed making their way to safety. This time of year is the breeding season for foxes, with many vixens heavily pregnant.
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