South Devon Hunt, Widecombe in the Moor, 05.04.25

On the 5th April the South Devon Hunt held their closing meet at Grendon Farm, Widecombe in the Moor. The South Devon Hunt usually host their closing meet at Broadaford Farm, owned by William Dracup (Deputy Chair of the Dartmoor National Park Authority who whilst hosting them last year was the Chair of the ‘Park Management Working Panel’). It is no wonder that the Dartmoor National Park continues to allow hunting with dogs when senior members of the Authority are pro-hunt.

Huntsman Joey Emmett left the meet alongside a field of 30+ riders and headed to Riddon Ridge via Cator Common. They spent a while up on the ridge whilst the hunt support littered the road. The hounds only briefly picked up scent here and headed down towards the road, before losing it.

From Riddon Ridge the hunt moved south in the direction of Babeny to the East Dart River, where Emmett was on foot desperately trying to get the hounds to pick up a scent, but due to the hot sunny weather of the day they struggled to do so, and with sabs all around, Emmett eventually gave up and moved on.

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Two Bridges Hunt Club, Dartmoor, 19.02.25

Twenty years on from the birth of the Hunting Act, sabs are still defending wildlife.

Yesterday we sabbed the Two Bridges Hunt Club meet on Dartmoor. This is the annual gathering of the four Dartmoor hunts (the Mid Devon, South Devon, Dartmoor, and Spooners & West Dartmoor hunts) to mark the anniversary of the Hunting Act. Essentially, it’s the hunts sticking two fingers up at the law and proclaiming that Dartmoor is their private playground. Many walkers and visitors to the moors were less than pleased to see them and to find the Postbridge road blocked with hunt traffic. It was nice to receive thanks from members of the public for standing up to these wildlife criminals. Predictably, no police were present and it was left to sabs to stop foxes from being killed, as has always been the case.

The hunts met at the East Dart Inn at Postbridge. We attended alongside Plymouth & West Devon Hunt Sabs, Mendip Hunt Sabs and South Devon Hunt Sabs. This year it was the Mid Devon Hunt’s turn to bring their hounds. In dense fog the hunts set off to the north, taking the bridlepath next to the Dartmoor visitor centre in direction of Broadun Round. They drew the gorse-covered slopes on both sides of the East Dart River, under the watchful eyes of our sabs who intervened to rate the hounds when they picked up on scent.

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Silverton & South Devon Joint Meet, Creedy Barton, 08.02.24

We’d heard Angie Prouse was hosting a joint meet of the Silverton and South Devon Hunts at Creedy Barton, near Crediton – a two-for-one we weren’t going to miss out on!

Two hunts means twice the number of red coats, riders, supporters and terriermen. The hosts will be keen to show off their ‘country’ and the visitors will want to impress with their hunting ability. Neither aim is aided by sabs attending to intervene in their cruel sport!

With this being an area we know very well from years of sabbing both the hunt and the badger cull, we were confident in our ability to make a difference here. On three occasions over the course of the day, when hounds were in the vicinity of known badger setts, we made a beeline for those setts and predictably found hounds marking foxes to ground there. Our presence averted digouts on each occasion, leaving about a dozen terriermen sat around on their quadbikes all day without a job to do. By mid-afternoon, the smug looks they’d greeted us with in the morning had been wiped off their faces and replaced with obscene gestures and “why don’t you just f*** off”.

We had eyes on the hunt all day. They set off east and then north towards Shobrooke Mill Farm, drawing the hedges uphill in direction of Furze and Efford, from where they carried on at speed towards Yendacott. Here we spent a while with huntsman Joe Emmett on foot as hounds were intermittently speaking. Silverton huntsman Chris Matterface and all the riders meanwhile sat in a neighbouring field. Sabs were on hand to cover the scent of foxes fleeing from the pack and rate the hounds off their line.

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Two Bridges Hunt Club, Dartmoor, 21.02.24

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.

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South Devon Hunt, Dartmoor, 23.09.23

We were up before the crack of dawn for a cracking sab of the South Devon Hunt, a hunt that by all accounts are cracking under the pressure of all the infighting amongst their ranks… Okay, you get the picture!

The hunt met at Bel Tor at 7am and spent four hours drawing the steep-sided and densely gorse-covered slopes of Sharp Tor, Yartor Down, Yar Tor and Corndon. Our trio of runners stuck to huntsman and hounds like glue – no mean feat across this kind of terrain! – while another foot team strategically intercepted hounds at various points when they were in cry on a line. Runners lifted hounds’ heads with horn and voice calls whenever they were cast out and rated them back to huntsman Joe Emmett if they picked up on scent. Compared to some of the hunts we sab, this pack were quite responsive to our calls.

One fox was marked to ground between a pile of rocks on a steep slope. Fortunately, runners were able to move hounds on before any hunt members arrived and that fox was therefore left alone. See below video:

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South Devon Hunt, Broadaford, Widecombe, 01.04.23

Yesterday we teamed up with friends from Plymouth & West Devon Hunt Sabs, Mendip Hunt Sabs, Bristol Hunt Saboteurs and North Dorset Hunt Saboteurs, to sab the end of season meet of the South Devon Hunt, the very last hunt in Devon to finish.

It’s also fitting that in the 60th anniversary year of the Hunt Saboteurs Association we should finish the season by sabbing the same hunt that was the first ever to be sabbed by the HSA in 1963.

South Devon huntsman Guy Landau is retiring, so we weren’t surprised to see hunt staff from other hunts in attendance at this meet, although we weren’t expecting to see Mark Hankinson, disgraced former director of the Masters of Foxhounds Association who famously branded trail-hunting a convenient ‘smokescreen’ for foxhunting.

The meet was at Broadaford near Widecombe, home of former hunt secretary Jane Dracup. The hunt set off to the south and instantly found the scent of a fox in the valley between West and East Shallowford. Hounds were seen leaping over stone walls from field to field but were intercepted by sabs on the road, which caused them to lose the scent.

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South Devon Hunt, Cold East Cross, 29.03.23

Today we were joined by friends from Mendip Hunt Sabs and Plymouth & West Devon Hunt Sabs to sab the South Devon Hunt at a meet down the road from Cold East Cross.

They too were joined by hunt staff and riders from other hunts, including Eggesford’s Jason Marles. The weather did an excellent job of sabbing them.

In thick fog and sideways rain huntsman Guy Landau set out north from the meet, riding along the road for a few miles “to see what might be possible”. He’d made the usual announcement at the meet that “trails have been laid”. Strange that, considering he didn’t seem to have much of a plan as to where he was going to hunt!

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South Devon Hunt, Postbridge, 25.03.23

With many of the moorland hunts still out hunting foxes weekly, we sabbed the South Devon Hunt (the first hunt to ever get sabbed, in 1963) at their meet at the post office at Postbridge, on Dartmoor.

A handful of riders plus the huntsman from the Dart Vale, South Poole and Modbury Harriers were also present, clearly hoping for a more eventful hunt than their closing meet last weekend.

Our foot teams managed extremely well keeping up with the hunt over the long and treacherous terrains of Dartmoor. Early on, hounds were cast into a patch of gorse that involved crossing a fence line and a river. When sabs got there, one hound was found screaming in pain, hanging from barbed wire that was wrapped tightly around their bleeding foot. Huntsman Guy Landau came over apathetically, tossing a pair of bolt cutters to the sabs, that instead landed in the river. You can’t make this shit up.
Sabs retrieved the tool and in the process of freeing the hound, our sab was bitten quite deeply on their leg. We know the hound was not to blame and had been in a state of severe distress. Huntsman Guy Landau however, is very much to blame for this incident. Our sab had to be rushed to A&E, where they were stitched up and monitored. The paramedics and doctors that treated our sab were very supportive of us, and disgusted that fox hunting still exists. As are we.

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South Devon Hunt, Broadhempston, 11.01.23

Yesterday we paid a visit to the South Devon Hunt, who met on the edge of Broadhempston on land belonging to the owner of Fishacre Barton.

We arrived late due to some vehicle issues and found the hunt in the valley between Hollycombe Green and Bow Cross, not far from the meet. From there they headed west towards Kingston Gate Cross and then into the fields between Combe and Fursdon.

Several dense bits of covert were drawn under the watchful eyes of our three foot teams. Clearly the South Devon Hunt have also given up any pretence of trail-hunting.

Drawing blank in this area and amidst strong winds and torrential rain the hunt then headed further west towards Abham Copse and Clay Copse. Hounds started speaking and a fox broke immediately in front of sabs who were able to cover the scent and ensure this one got away. Hounds squeezed themselves through large patches of dense brambles lining the slopes of Clay Copse, with riders stationed on point on the road and in surrounding fields.

Eventually huntsman Guy Landau gave up on finding the fox in this area and headed slowly for home.

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Lamerton, Eggesford, South Devon and Dart Vale, Modbury and South Pool Harriers. 01.10.22

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.

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