Hunt hounds chased and attacked pet cats, dogs, horses, donkeys and alpacas, report says

Independent

4 hours ago

Dozens of pets and farm animals including cats, dogs, horses, donkeys and alpacas were chased or attacked by hound packs in the most recent hunting season, anti-hunt campaigners say.
They also harassed sheep, pheasants and reindeer, according to an analysis of reports by anti-hunt organisation Protect the Wild. In all, 89 domestic and farm animals in 10 months were said to have been caused distress by hunt hounds.
Hounds are regularly blamed for tearing through private land, animal sanctuaries and gardens, as well as creating havoc on roads.
In one case, Devon County Hunt Saboteurs wrote: 'Reports of hounds in people's gardens, pet cats disappearing (thankfully it appears they returned), foxes hiding in people's gardens, and even a hound 'impaled' on a gate after it attempted to get through it.'
The report also says only 5 per cent of hunts in England and Wales – one in 20 – consistently hunted legally, by following an artificial scent trail, during the past season.
Protect the Wild used reports by hunt saboteurs and monitors, members of the public, police and information sent directly to it to analyse activity during the latest hunting season, from last July to April this year.
The activists documented 411 incidents of foxes being chased or killed – a 13 per cent increase on the year before when there were 364 such reports, although better monitoring may account for the rise.
Hunt opponents consistently complain police often fail to attend reports of hunting at the time and that prosecution rates are low.
Government figures show there have been more than 1,400 prosecutions since the Hunting Act 2004 took effect in 2005, but the Hunt Saboteurs Association says hare-coursing convictions account for most of those, while fox hunting cases often fail to get to court.
But in 2021, a hunt master was fined £480 for being in charge of a dangerously out-of-control pack of dogs that mauled a pet cat to death in Penzance, Cornwall.
In the latest season, reports of deer- and hare-hunting also rose, Protect the Wild's third annual report says. In many of those, dogs trained to hunt foxes were used to attack.
Hunts chased or killed 239 deer, the information suggests, against 150 the previous season, thanks to higher levels of monitoring of staghound packs.
Hares were chased or killed 58 times, a 41 per cent increase on data from the previous season.
In all, 'persecutions' of more than 700 wild animals were recorded but Protect the Wild believes this is an underestimate.
In what the activists branded 'another example of hunts' brazen lawlessness', 137 incidents of illegal badger sett interference were recorded during the season.
This included blocking entrances, disturbing live badgers or digging out setts to stop foxes using them to flee a chase.
In opposition, Labour pledged to ban trail-hunting to end all fox hunting. But the activists said delays to reform of the Hunting Act 'appear to be emboldening hunts and their sickening behaviour'.
Glen Black, the report author, said extrapolating from the figures suggested there were up to 7,000 cases of 'fox persecution'.
'All evidence points to hunts acting even more egregiously when not held actively accountable by sabs and monitors,' he said.
Hunts insist they trail-hunt to stay within the law, but a hunt master was revealed to have told fellow hunters that that was a 'smokescreen'.
A spokesperson for the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: 'This government is committed to ban trail hunting by the next general election.'