Despite both the ‘hunting season’ and the ‘blasting birds out of the air season’ being over for the first half of 2025, we have continued to keep building our bloodbusiness.info database. Designed to give us all information about where and which public-facing businesses are connected to hunting with dogs and/or shooting birds or mammals, bloodbusiness is interactive and (we’re proud to say) absolutely loathed by some of the businesses on it…and there are now more than 1025 of them on the site.
Now, we don’t actually see going over 1000 businesses listed as a milestone – at least, it’s not something we want to celebrate. From our perspective, it would be wonderful if we’d simply run out of hunt and shoot supporting businesses to list months ago, but that doesn’t seem likely to happen anytime soon. There is always some pub or hotel willing to support a hunt fundraiser or an estate willing to flog birds to its complicit clients that we’ve not heard about yet. We – and our wonderful supporters (whom we really couldn’t do this without) – are always on the look-out…
Ireland, Point to points, and shooting estates
Mainly because we have been sent a pile of information from Ireland, where we had virtually no listings a few months ago; we have dug up a lot of information about point-to-points; and one remarkable supporter (who’s asked to remain nameless) has compiled huge spreadsheets of literally hundreds of shoots.
Ireland
As we just said, fox hunting is still legal in Ireland. The Irish Masters of Foxhounds Association (IMFHA) claims on its website that it “represents the interests of 42 registered foxhunting packs” across the country. Because it’s legal there is no need for hunts to pretend to lay trails and the media can gleefully report on fox kills. In other words, there is no reason to doubt that if a venue is supportive of hunting it knows exactly what that means.
Which also means that venues like Kettle’s Country House Hotel in County Dublin (which hosted the Fingal Harriers Hunt ball in February 2024 and a meet of the same hunt in November 2024 when it was filmed coming out of the Kettle’s car park), Dunraven Arms Hotel in County Limerick (“Fox-hunting is a particular speciality of the proprietors Louis & Hugh Murphy” according to its website), and both The Castle Arms Hotel (which is something of a haven for the Laois Foxhounds) and the Abbeyleix Manor Hotel in County Laois (the hotel has hosted the Laois hunt’s fundraising Hunt ball for a number of years and did so again in 2025), know exactly what sort of wildlife abuse they are promoting.
The same goes for venues that support hare coursing. Ireland remains one of just three countries in Europe that continues to allow legal hare coursing. A 2019 RED C poll found that 77% of people in Ireland want coursing banned, with just 9% disagreeing with a ban. During the 2023/24 coursing season, more than 3,000 Hares were captured from the wild and coursed. Of those, over 100 were hit or tossed by dogs, more than 130 were pinned, and over 120 hares needed veterinary attention, with some dying or being euthanised, as a result of injuries sustained. There is no doubt whatsoever that venues like Jimmy Brownes in County Kerry, The Quays in County Tipperary, and the White Sands Hotel in County Kerry that all support coursing (the latter even sponsoring the “White Sands Hotel Coursing Cup” at the Ballyheigue coursing meeting) know the suffering caused and presumably see no reason to cater to the majority that want coursing ended.
Ireland’s tourism industry was worth €6.2 billion in 2025, up 13% on the previous year. We’d be exaggerating hugely if we thought bloodbusiness.info was at the stage where it had a major influence on where tourists spend their money, but if some of them find their way to this site and make decisions not to invest in cruelty…
Point to points
Running a hunt is not cheap, and while it is supported by some very wealthy individuals (note, for example, the cluster of huge pro-hunting estates in Gloucestershire which include Highgrove, the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort’s Badminton Estate, and Chavenage House), hunts hold numerous events to bring the money in. These include Hunt Balls, ‘Fun Rides’, and Point to Points.
Point to Points are built around keeping hunts in the public eye. According to the British Horseracing Society, Point-to-Point Steeple Chases are for horses owned and ridden by members of an affiliated Hunt. A fixture can either be arranged by a Hunt or group of Hunts. Hunting’s ‘friendly face’ they often feature a dog show and are recruiting vehicles for hunts.
Point to points are often heavily sponsored by hunt-supporting businesses. We listed around twenty who supported the appalling Blackmore and Sparkford Vale’s (BSV) Point to Point at Wincanton Racecourse in March 2025. Should the businesses listed not understand what it is they’re supporting (which seems unlikely, frankly), we’ve added nine links to Protect the Wild and sabs articles on the BSV and will add more as the BSV cock-up again in the future.
As we said we’ve listed a number of courses now, and will continue to add them as we come across or are sent them.
A selection are listed below:
- Worcestershire’s Chaddesley Corbett Point to Point regularly hosts the Albrighton & Woodland Hunt, the Worcestershire Hunt, and Herefordshire’s Wheatland Hunt. In May 2025 the course supported a fundraiser for the Albrighton which was sponsored by upmarket estate agents Balfours.
- Devon’s Bratton Down Point to Point is close to Exmoor National Park and has hosted fundraisers for many hunts over the years: meetings in 2024 were for the Dulverton West Foxhounds (May 2024), the Exmoor Foxhounds (May 2024), and the notorious Tiverton Staghounds (June 2024). The Tiverton will be there again in June 2025.
- Dorset’s Milborne St Andrews Point to Point was the meeting place for what the South Dorset Hunt described as a ‘Fun Ride’ and a ‘horse event’ in May 2025, but what was more accurately described by Weymouth Animal Rights as a ‘fundraising ride’ which will help enable the South Dorset to continue – er, ‘trail hunting’ during the next fox hunting ‘season’.
- Somerset’s Cothelstone Point to Point features fundraising point-to-points for the loathsome Quantock Staghounds and their depraved supporters, the merged Weston & Banwell Harriers and West Somerset Vale, and the Taunton Vale Hunts. The hunting links don’t end there: the previously-listed Carew Arms (a strong supporter of the Quantock Staghounds) hosted a ‘Cothelstone Point to Point After Party’ in March 2025.
- Suffolk’s Higham Point to Point runs two meetings a season; the Waveney Harriers Meet in February and the Essex & Suffolk Meet on Good Friday. The latter hunt is run by the Buckle family, who run the Nedging Hall Estate and own – amongst other businesses we’ve already listed – The Bildeston Crown and The Lindsey Rose pubs.
Venues supporting shooting
Compiling the bloodbusiness.info database has been really eye opening. As a team, we thought we had a good handle on how ‘normalised’ shooting birds has become. Tackling what has become an all-pervasive industry killing millions of birds a year is of course why we recently launched the End Bird Shooting campaign with its own Substack and social media feeds.
However, the causal way that some estates and hotels offer ‘shooting’ alongside hiking, cycling, and even birdwatching is quite staggering. Thanks to a tireless supporter who has compiled a (very) long spreadsheet detailing venues, estates, and suppliers we’ve been able to regularly add new businesses to the database (in fact in honour of this supporter’s efforts we made sure the 1000th listing came from their information).
It can get a bit wearying to constantly think of new ways to say “gives its complicit clients the opportunity to kill local wildlife’ but we’ve given it a good go! Examples in the last month alone include the following:
- Ardifuir (Argull and Bute): The “Perfect Scottish Retreat” under ‘Shooting’, we learn that “Ardifuir offers a fantastic range of shooting options for all guests. We have a small, established pheasant shoot, supplemented by a wide variety of wild residents including geese, snipe and pigeon. Woodcock are in good numbers by mid November and wild duck are flighted on fed ponds and the river throughout the season.” So, not only introduced pheasants and semi-domesticated ducks but guests are invited to come and kill Red Listed Woodcock and Amber Listed Common Snipe.
- Brahan Estate (Ross-shire): Brahan seems to see no issue at all with inserting killing birds into a list of ‘things to do’ that includes birdwatching, walking, and photography. It seems to be particularly keen to flatter shooters, using words like ‘talent’ to describe using modern weapons to kill unsuspecting wildlife, and presumably pissing off their birdwatching clients by offering Red Listed Woodcock to their shooting clients.
- Cainhoe Manor (Bucks): Cainhoe sells birds to shoot. An average day (the website casually tells visitors) would see 200-250 birds killed, and there “will also be regular stops for drinks and snack breaks” of course. In case they were so disengaged they had no idea what was actually happening while they were out waving their weapons about, gamekeeper Scott even pops in to let the more ‘absent’ shooters “know how the day went”.
- Glen Dye Cabins (Aberdeenshire): The estate sells numerous ‘experiences’, has a cafe and a private hire cinema, and a conservation project up and running – but, hang on, this is Scotland where estates routinely sell the local wildlife to shooters. There is no mention of shooting on the website (not even in the FAQs) but there is plenty on the safe space website for the bird killing community GunsOnPegs: “We offer a warm, friendly welcome, and deliver some of the best shooting in the area…driven days typically yield up to 200+ birds including pheasant, partridge and duck” all offered by Charlie & Caroline Gladstone who “have been custodians of Glen Dye for over 30 years…”
More to come – and we welcome every one!
When we launched bloodbusiness.info we were advised that it would be a never-ending task. That’s probably true. It is somewhat Sisyphean – clearing the inbox of emails from supporters (and the occasional detractor) only to start over again the next week. But taking these businesses on was never going to be easy.
- We’re up for the challenge. And we are – and will remain – extremely grateful for everyone who takes the time to use our Contact Form to send us information. Thank you.
