As the official
foxhunting season is now in full stride, having started on 1st November, South Wales
Hunt Saboteurs have been out in the field saving wildlife from cruel and horrific deaths. Hunting with hounds was made illegal in 2005 with the arrival of the
Hunting Act, but the act has various loopholes (it is still legal to flush out
a fox to a gun using two hounds and to ‘
trail hunt’ – follow an artificial
scent). These loopholes coupled with the fact that the police aren’t really
bothered what the hunts are up to, mean that the majority of hunts continue to
hunt just as they did in pre-ban days, often under the guise of ‘trail
hunting’.
Although the most
obvious victims of hunting are the hunted animals themselves (famously foxes,
but there are hunts that chase and kill hares, stags, mink and more), they are
not the only ones. When a hound becomes too old or slow to hunt or if they were
never any good at hunting in the first place they are simply shot. The horses
often don’t have a very pleasant existence either as they are often ridden to
exhaustion and hunters and members of the field (the riders following the hunt)
hitting their horse if they don’t ‘behave’ sadly isn’t a rare occurrence.
