Eggesford & Spooners Joint Meet, Smeardon Down, 24.01.26

On Saturday we joined forces with Plymouth & West Devon Hunt Sabs to sab the joint meet of Eggesford and Spooners & West Dartmoor Hunts. A natural pairing, as terriermen from both hunts have racked up criminal convictions based on evidence gathered by us. Sabs comfortably outnumbered riders, a sure sign of dwindling support for both of these hunts. Several of the field riders were young children on ponies.

Hounds were unboxed at Smeardon Down and taken to the meet at Lower Churchtown in Peter Tavy. Here we were greeted by an elderly male hunt follower with the words “piss off you old slag”, which is rich coming from a man whose idea of youth is remembering when that insult was still fashionable.

From the meet, the hunt headed north and via Cudliptown onto the moor. Our Land Rover followed and was blocked by masked terrierman Tom Bounsall, who nearly lost his quad in a ditch as he swerved wildly to overtake, a bold manoeuvre given he had a young child perched on the back of his one-seater quadbike. The vehicle, unsurprisingly, had no numberplate and is almost certainly uninsured to be driving on the road. Tom then crawled along at about 2mph in front of our Land Rover in a misguided attempt to delay us, achieving only the remarkable feat of annoying everyone else on the road. This included a woman in genuine distress who was prevented from reaching her sick horse. His performance achieved absolutely nothing of value, as two foot teams were already positioned on the moor well ahead of the hunt’s arrival.

Tom, who clearly peaked in pre-school, repeatedly seems determined to demonstrate that confidence and competence are not the same thing. This terrierman now divides his time between these two hunts. He’s currently under police investigation for a catalogue of incidents, including digging out foxes, blocking badger setts, assault and using his quad as a weapon against sabs and members of the public. How he fits all this in alongside caring for a toddler and (allegedly) holding down a job is anyone’s guess. Our best theory is that he doesn’t spend much time and effort on those other things, which is probably for the best considering his volatile temperament.

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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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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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Spooners & West Dartmoor Hunt, Dartmoor, 16.09.23

Yesterday we teamed up with Plymouth & West Devon Hunt Sabs to pay a visit to the Spooners & West Dartmoor Hunt at their early morning cubbing meet on the western edge of Dartmoor. A couple of weeks ago, members of this hunt violently attacked a couple of the Plymouth & West Devon sabs, stealing equipment, cutting the body cam off one sab with a knife, and injuring a sab’s hand. If the hunt wanted to put sabs off for the coming season, they’ll have to learn the hard way that they’ve only done the opposite.

Huntsman, hounds, terriermen, and around a handful of riders met at Smeardon Down near Peter Tavy. They began hunting between Lower Godsworthy and Higher Godsworthy and then accessed the moor, spending most of the morning hunting valleys between Cox Tor and Great Staple Tor, between White Tor and Great Mis Tor and around Petertavy Great Common and Cocks Hill. Foot sab teams went onto the moor from various directions.

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Lamerton Hunt. Spooners & West Dartmoor Hunt. 22.10.22

On Saturday we visited two hunts, both finishing up their fox cub hunting season. Neither put up much of a fight. First we found the Lamerton hunting at Kelly. Upon seeing sabs, huntsman Lewis quickly gathered hounds and packed up.

Our tip line is always busy (keep it up!) so we headed to the next nearest meet of the Spooners near their kennels at Sampford Spiney. We found them on Vixen Tor and kept an eye on them as they rode around in some pretty miserable weather, and they also packed up soon after we arrived.

With opening meets coming up to start the main hunting season, hunts will be more determined to chase and kill wildlife and won’t pack up so quickly. We are always looking for new sabs – whatever your age or fitness level – message us about getting involved to help put a stop to these craven animal abusers.

Please keep your tip-offs coming in.

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Spooners & West Dartmoor Hunt, New Venn Farm, Lamerton, 27.11.21

On Saturday 27th November in the wake of Storm Arwen we visited the Spooners meet at New Venn Farm on the edge of Lamerton.

Although we were delayed getting to the meet, with two vehicles and five foot teams we easily outnumbered the hunt on this occasion.

They spent a couple of hours in the valley between the meet and Lower Chaddlehanger with just a couple of support cars watching from the road.

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Spooners and West Dartmoor Hunt, Long Ash, Yelverton, 29.09.20

On Tuesday we paid a visit to the Spooners and West Dartmoor who met at Long Ash near Yelverton. A pathetic turnout of 3 supporters and just 1 rider accompanied huntsman Guy Morlock and his hounds.

He spent approximately one and a half hours in the wooded valley near the meet before packing up. He barely made any attempt to hunt and kept hounds close by.
Terriermen arrived late to the meet and seemed to be hesitant to even unload their quad once seeing our drivers presence on the road.

Let’s hope this hunt continues to be so easy to sab.
Long run the fox 🦊

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Spooners and West Dartmoor Hunt, Long Plantation, Princetown. Dartmoor Hunt, Dunnabridge Farm. 03.03.2020

This Tuesday a small team of us with the help of a friend from South Devon Animal Rights decided to visit Dartmoor to see what the hunts were up to.

We chose to keep eyes on the Spooners and West Dartmoor hunt first. Their meet was at Long Plantation near Princetown, the host being their own field master Martin Allison. A relatively small affair with a lack of support and riders.

Long term follower Mary Alford, who’s son Daniel is incidentally a director of the badger cull in this area, was busy scowling at us: http://innocentbadger.com/cull-zones/badger-cull-company-directors-revealed/

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Four Dartmoor Hunts, Two Bridges Hotel, 19.02.2020

On Wednesday we teamed up with sabs from SDAR, Guildford and Norfolk to sab the traditional ‘commiseration of the hunting ban’ meet of the four Dartmoor hunts: Dartmoor, Mid Devon, South Devon and Spooners. We couldn’t however see any sign of the Spooners on the day. We’d heard that they’d been hunting and digging out the day before in the Princetown area, so perhaps there has been a falling out between them and the other hunts?

Mid Devon huntsman Duncan Hume was hunting his hounds, Robert Medcalf huntsman from South Devon was out as were the two Harrys from the Dartmoor hunt, Gosling the huntsman and Cook his whip.

The hunt met at the Two Bridge’s hotel and were met by a great group of protesters from Devon Against Hunting, and Action Against Foxhunting. News reporters from ITV were also present and interviewed the hunt who gave their usual trail hunt lies nonsense.

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