A scaled-back Boxing Day trail-hunting programme will go ahead this year despite the worsening Covid situation and growing calls to ban the practice on public land, the Countryside Alliance has said.
The majority of Boxing Day hunts are due to go ahead on 27 December because this year’s holiday falls on a Sunday, traditionally a day of rest for the hunting community.
Restrictions designed to slow the spread of the virus in Scotland and Wales have forced many packs to cancel public gatherings connected to their meets. Meanwhile, critics demand the prohibition on public land of a sport they believe is often merely a front for illegal foxhunting.
The Labour party has denounced allowing hunts on public and government-owned land as “completely irresponsible”, prompting fierce criticism from the Countryside Alliance (CA), which accused the party of pursuing “anti-rural” policies.
“Trail hunting and popular festive meets are an important part of rural life. Labour have consistently performed poorly in the countryside in recent elections and it is no surprise when they pursue anti-rural policies like those announced today,” a CA spokesperson said. “It is high time they drop their bizarre obsession with class warfare and focus on addressing issues which actually matter to rural people if they ever want to be taken seriously.”
A Labour spokesperson pointed to a recent Farmers Weekly survey that suggested the party’s popularity among farmers had increased slightly since the last general election. “Other rural bodies recognise trail hunting for what it is – an antiquated exercise that most people believe should be consigned to the history books for animal welfare, protection of natural habitats and, unlike this Conservative government, respect for the rules.”
The party said it planned to help rural communities if it formed the next government by focusing on creating jobs, tackling crime and improving public services such as bus routes and hospitals.
The Countryside Alliance claims trail hunting, which involves following a scent set by a trail layer rather than a live animal, remains popular with spectators. But pressure to end the practice is growing. In November, National Trust members voted overwhelmingly to ban it on National Trust land. And one of the biggest landowners in Wales, Natural Resources Wales, has also prohibited it.
Activists believe more than 240 hunting days are likely to have taken place on Ministry of Defence land this year. Trail hunting’s proponents say it is a humane and legal way to carry on a centuries-old practice. Critics point to the case of a prominent huntsman who was fined in October after being found to have encouraged people to hide illegal foxhunting behind a “smokescreen” of trail hunting.
The Countryside Alliance said: “Anti-hunt fanatics have spent years making ridiculous claims about hunting – which they often use to raise money – yet nearly every time it makes allegations to the police or a court they are found to be false.
“There have been hundreds of thousands of days legal trail hunting carried out by hunts since the Hunting Act came into force and only a handful of convictions relating to registered hunts. The reality is these prejudiced activists are driven by a hatred of people and not by improving animal welfare.”
Chris Luffingham, the League Against Cruels Sports’ director of external affairs, said: “The Countryside Alliance is either breathtaking in its arrogance or suffering from amnesia. Just two short months ago, one of hunting’s most senior people was found guilty of telling more than 100 huntsmen and women on each of two training webinars how to use trail hunting as a ‘smokescreen’, to use his words, for what the judge then described as ‘old-fashioned illegal hunting’.
“Mark Hankinson, the now former director of the Masters of Foxhounds Association, was supported in court by the Countryside Alliance. We suggest it is the Countryside Alliance’s leadership who are the fanatics, as they desperately try to defend a so-called sport that is as outdated and old-fashioned as it is cruel.”