Lame response from Quantock Hills authority to concerns about stag hunting

The team that manages the Quantock Hills recently revealed in responses to emails what it does to ensure staghound packs stay within the law when they are hunting in the famed National Landscape.

Protect the Wild has seen this explanation, which was underwhelming to say the least and which has been variously described by supporters who contacted us as ‘weak’, ‘feeble’, evasive’, and ‘obfuscatory’. Though the Quantock Hills National Landscape Team said its rangers report illegal activity when they observe it, it painted itself as relatively powerless to safeguard wildlife and the landscape against the crimes that regularly take place on the Quantock Hills during deer hunting season.

Stag hunting

All of England’s remaining staghound packs operate in the southwest of the country and typically hunt mature stags between August and October before moving on to targeting hinds (female deer). In England and Wales, deer hunting season ends in Spring, with hunts unable to target female deer after March and stags off limits after April. The supposedly ‘protected’ Quantock Hills in Somerset are the territory of the Quantock Staghounds (QSH).

Staghound packs rely on loopholes in the Hunting Act to continue chasing and killing deer. These include the trail hunting loophole and the flushing to guns exemption, which allows them to use two dogs to ‘flush’ wild animals like deer out of hiding or cover before shooting them “as soon as possible.” The use of this exemption is only permissible under certain circumstances, such as protecting crops from the targeted animal or relieving their suffering if they are injured.

Witnesses on the ground routinely see deer hunting that breaks the law. Groups like North Dorset Hunt Saboteurs and the Mendip Hunt Sabs regularly report that hunts cruelly chase deer for hours, which flies in the face of the spirit of the flushing to guns exemption.

Another exemption utilised by stag hunts is research and observation, which allows for the hunting of a wild mammal for the purpose of observing and studying them. But there is sparse evidence that hunts are engaging in scientific research in any meaningful way. Moreover, monitors regularly report chases occurring on land that should be off limits to them, which – where hunts are relying on it – falls foul of the conditions in the research and observation exemption.

Hunts routinely flout the ‘two dog’ exemption too, using dogs in relays so that ‘fresh’ dogs are being used mile after mile.

As we have highlighted before, the fact that staghound packs switch between the exemptions they rely on strongly suggests that they are exploiting the loopholes opportunistically.

And as Protect the Wild has previously pointed out, these long chases are cheered on by groups of hunt support driving 4x4s across the SSSI, meaning that while the mode of transport has changed the baying, blood soaked spectacle of deer hunting today is nearly identical to what it was before the passing of the Hunting Act. Fancy that.

Quantock Hills response

In an email exchange seen by Protect the Wild (and partly copied below), the Quantock Hills National Landscape Team suggests that it has little power to influence what impact hunts have on the landscape, on the animals, or on the people who visit the Hills in their thousands, as these are discussed between landowners and Natural England in light of much of the hilltops being a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

It goes on to say that hunts operating across the hills are using the “limited and specific” exemptions discussed above implying their actions therefore fall under “legal activities”.

“The Quantock Hills National Landscape Partnership is not a land-owning body and as such has no control over legal activities that occur on private or public bodies land within the National Landscape. We do have a number of staff, such as the Rangers, who are out on the ground, and when they observe illegal activity they will report this to the appropriate authority, such as the police, as we are not an enforcement body. We advise, that where possible and safe to do so, people who observe what they believe to be illegal hunting report it to the police with as much information as possible on the 101 non-emergency number or 999 if you or someone else is in immediate danger or you need the police immediately. Please be advised that direct reports to the police are given more weight than third party reports – where a person has informed us of an incident which we then pass on to the police.”

In its explanation, the Quantock team also advised that people who witness illegal hunting can report it to the police themselves, highlighting that “direct reports to the police are given more weight than third party reports – where a person has informed us of an incident which we then pass on to the police.”

Our supporters regularly complain that local police have no interest at all in enforcing the law on hunts, but “caring for” the hills firmly falls under this team’s responsibility anyway, as explained on the Quantock Hills website.

The Quantock Hills team explained that its staff do report vehicles seen in off-limits areas to the police. Protect the Wild asked the team how many times rangers have reported illegal deer hunting activity in the most recent hunting season. It could not give us accurate figures due to the short timescale of our request but said that its staff:

“regularly liaise with the relevant police and enforcement authorities over illegal activity in the Quantock Hills National Landscape, which include incidents where they believe hunting activity is being undertaken illegally.”

Allowing terror to reign

The picture that emerges from this explanation is one of a body with little authority and little understanding of how hunts are exploiting exemptions to break the law. Relying on the public to do its job is feeble, and echoes the much-criticised responses from the National Trust about stopping hunting on its land from several years ago.

The Quantock team suggested, landowner permissions are a key reason why these hunts continue to operate with impunity, and suggested that it has little power to influence what “impacts” hunts have on the landscape, as these are discussed between landowners and Natural England in light of much of the hilltops being a Site of Special Scientific Interest. However, the Quantock Hills AONB Partnership, which directs the work of the team, is made up of Somerset Council members, local parish council members, and representatives of several landowning bodies, such as Natural England and Forestry England.

They know the problems here. Local and national media have been increasingly reporting stories from horrified visitors to the Hills’Locals are increasingly angry too. The parish council representatives include one from Holford Parish Council. In 2020, this parish council reported that it had received numerous complaints about the behaviour of the Quantock Staghounds, including prolonged chases of deer, trespassing by hunt personnel, and aggressive and intimidating behaviour by hunt supporters.

Given the evidence of crime, harassment, and damage to the SSSI it’s hard to see why the entities involved in the Quantock Hills AONB Partnership don’t appear capable of bringing their combined weight to bear to crack down on hunts’ appalling behaviour in these hills. Even strengthening enforcement of existing bans on parts of the AONB’s land and making sure that every single offence is logged and reported to police would see progress.

The Quantock Hills matter: after all, the Quantock Hills’ 2019-2024 management plan describes the area as “a biodiversity resource of the highest significance” that “offers fantastic opportunities for people to learn more about the natural world, and enjoy the benefits of connecting with it.”

If the authorities were serious about stopping hunts breaking the law, they could do it. Animals are dying in fear and in pain. It is inexcusable that those tasked with conserving and enhancing this most precious of landscapes won’t buckle down and safeguard it from a tiny minority of the population whose actions turn these hills into a place of terror rather than tranquility.

It is critical that the QSH are booted off the Hills. As the Secret Monitor wrote in an exclusive post for Protect the Wild two years ago, “Without land, stag hunting will die. It will fade into the history books, to be looked back on as a shameful and embarrassing plague of the South West’s past.”