Hunting Havoc Report reveals shocking level of hunt recklessness
In the past decade there have been numerous reports of hunting hounds chasing terrified animals and, in some cases, killing domestic animals, livestock and pets. These so-called “accidents” are taking place across the country every year and the hunts repeatedly apologise for their actions and promise that they will review their procedures to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
However, there is no reason why anti-hunting campaigners and members of the public should simply accept these promises and forgive the hunts for their behaviour. The issue only seems to be getting worse.
In 2021 Protect the Wild tracked the reported incidents of reckless behaviour of hunts and our ‘Hunting Havoc’ report found that since October 2020 there had been 7 reported incidents involving hunting hounds terrorising or killing domestic animals and livestock. These incidents involved a variety of animals and reflect the sheer recklessness of hunts across the country who continue to claim they are following artificial scents as opposed to live mammals despite overwhelming evidence that is simply not the case. The question must be asked as to how and why hounds are running out of control and killing domestic animals if hunts really are following a pre-laid artificial scent as they claim.
The report logged the incidents dating from the beginning of the 2020 hunting season (October 1st 2020) to the 4th January 2021 when the hunting season was postponed. This report revealed how there had been an incident involving hunts terrorising domestic animals or livestock on average every two weeks. This is shocking not only considering the number of incidents in such a short space of time but considering it is highly likely that there are more incidents not reported. It is also worth mentioning that the 2020 hunting season took place under unprecedented circumstances and that the number of hunting days would have been considerably lower than in 2019/20.
Read the full report (pdf): Hunting Havoc Report PTW
