Protecting the Wild Equipment Fund #3: Hull Wildlife Protectors
Protect the Wild is working hard to empower people to protect British wildlife. In the Spring we began building a unique information resource to help tackle wildlife crime and acts of criminality that we called ‘Protectors of the Wild‘. ‘Protectors’ has now expanded to 35 pages and answers about 400 FAQs on everything from laws […]
Sarah Moulds case shines a light on speciesism in the UK
Cottesmore Hunt rider Sarah Moulds was found not guilty on 25 August for punching and kicking her horse Bruce. Her defence argument, and the subsequent verdict, once again highlights the speciesism that is rampant in society. As I already covered in a recent article, speciesism is where someone sees one species as superior to others, […]
Blackmore and Sparkford Vale Hunt filmed ripping up fox
For hunters whose bloodlust knows no bounds, it’s cub hunting season: a time when they can train their hounds to murder defenceless fox cubs. The Blackmore and Sparkford Vale (BSV) Hunt was caught and filmed on 24 August, the hounds appearing to tear up a fox that they had just killed. Dorset Monitor was observing […]
Punching a horse is atrocious, but so is murdering fox cubs
Most people reading Protect the Wild already know this, but it bears being said. The media circus around Sarah Moulds highlights Britain’s broken relationship with other animals. When Hertfordshire Hunt Saboteurs filmed Moulds attacking a horse in November 2021, the footage went far and wide. Not only across anti-hunting social media but across the headlines […]
Scotland snare ban: Join Chris Packham in making your voice heard
Chris Packham has joined animal rights charities to celebrate “a potential win for wildlife” as Scotland moves closer to banning snares. As we reported on 22 August, the Scottish government is asking for views on whether the use of snares should be “banned as part of new plans to protect vulnerable wildlife”. The consultation will […]
Protecting the Wild Equipment Fund #2 – another group supported!
This Summer we launched the Protecting the Wild Equipment Fund to put ‘eyes in the field’ and empower people to protect British wildlife. Any money raised from paid subscriptions on our Substack platform goes straight into the Equipment Fund to provide groups and individuals with equipment (eg trail cameras, radios or night vision optics) that […]
Hunt saboteurs ‘seriously assaulted’ while monitoring a deer hunt
Hunt saboteurs in the southwest have said that hunt followers “seriously assaulted” two members during a deer hunt. The attack hospitalised one sab and smashed up a vehicle. The Hunt Saboteurs Association (HSA) said on 22 August that two sabs were assaulted while following the Devon and Somerset Staghounds. One was a member of Devon […]
Gillingham and Shaftesbury Show: Who’s not telling the truth?
Over the last few weeks Protect the Wild has supported an Action Against Foxhunting (AAF) campaign which was asking for clarity about which hunt packs organisers had invited to parade at the Gillingham and Shaftesbury Show (which was on 16/17 August). Looking at the show’s website it was clear there would be ‘Hound Parades’ but […]
Scottish Water looks set to ban grouse shooting on their land
The gory blood sport of grouse shooting is well underway in the UK. The rich are whipping out their rifles in delight, eager to murder defenceless birds. But it’s one blow after another for grouse shooters in Scotland, as Scottish Water has stated that it will issue no new leases on its estate. The company […]
Scottish Greens describe grouse shooting as ‘festival of violence’
The barbaric grouse shooting season began on 12 August, the ‘Inglorious 12th’. The Scottish Green Party has sent a clear message to gamekeepers and wealthy shooters that the blood sport is not welcome in Scotland. The Scottish Greens’ rural affairs minister, Ariane Burgess MSP, didn’t mince her words when she said: “There is nothing glorious […]
Protecting the Wild Equipment Fund #1: Cheshire Borderland Monitors
The Protecting the Wild Equipment Fund provides equipment like radios or cameras to individuals or groups who are working in the field to protect wildlife. We have asked each recipient to explain what they do and how they are using the equipment we have provided – not only to show supporters how their donations are […]
No Boxing Day Parades
Councils – No End of Year Hunt Parades How better to celebrate Christmas than blocking town centres and having drunken hunt supporters intimidating local people…? Councillors need to know the risks they are taking – and what laws they might be allowing to be broken – if they allow hunts to parade in their […]
GUILTY: Huntsman Chris Woodward in court yet again
Chris Woodward, ex-huntsman for the Wynnstay Hunt, has pleaded guilty to interfering with a badger sett near Malpas, north Wales. The guilty plea comes after the Hunt Saboteurs Association (HSA) released footage back in February 2023, showing two men escaping on a quad bike after they were confronted by sabs. The men were named as […]
What is the Gillingham and Shaftesbury Show trying to hide?
Protect the Wild is campaigning with Action Against Foxhunting to ask ‘What is the Gillingham and Shaftesbury Show trying to hide?’ GO TO LETTER Held at the The Turnpike Showground the annual Gillingham & Shaftesbury Show typically welcomes over 20,000 visitors. Some of them will be amongst the 85% of people who regularly tell […]
TRIAL DATE FIXED: Avon Vale terrierman to face jury
A trial date has been set for notorious Avon Vale terrierman Alex Warden. He will go to trial in Salisbury Crown Court on 21 December 2023. He is complicit in hounds tearing apart one fox, and chasing another. The Avon Vale Hunt made national headlines when a video was passed onto the Hunt Saboteurs Association […]
OPINION: There’s nothing ‘glorious’ about killing grouse
The 12th of August (the ‘Inglorious 12th’) marks the start of a key ‘season’ for the shooting industry. During the next 121 days the industry will sell thousands of Red Grouse to shooters. It is in effect the start of the ‘Christmas shopping period’ for the shooting industry when it hopes to make money on […]
Who’s got the ‘begging bowl’ out now?
Two recent incidents point to a yawning void in the world of hunting. First, fintech company SumUp put hunting on its shit list, meaning hunts can no longer use it as a transaction method. Second, the British Hound Sports Association (BHSA) published a video pleading for new members. Together, they expose the hunting industry’s financial […]
Evil brothers buried charity cyclist in stink pit on shooting estate
Last week the Daily Record reported that a speeding drunk-driver, Alexander McKellar, 31, had pleaded guilty to causing the death of charity cyclist Tony Parsons by hitting the 63-year-old with his vehicle on the A82 near Bridge of Orchy, Argyll and Bute (Scotland), on September 29, 2017. He and his twin brother Robert McKellar both […]
SumUp denies hunts card payment services
It’s been one blow after another for fox hunters these past couple of years. Struggling to stay afloat, a number of hunts have shut down or amalgamated. And now they have been hit with yet another financial woe: they have been banned from taking card payments at their fundraising events. This is a major victory […]
Chepstow Show won’t review decision to host Curre and Llangibby Hunt
Despite protests by local residents, organisers from the Chepstow Show have told campaigners they will not be reviewing a decision to invite the Curre and Llangibby Foxhounds to parade there on August 12th (coincidentally also the date that shooters will again open fire on Red Grouse on moorland shooting estates). Held at Chepstow Racecourse, the […]
A ‘nation of animal lovers’, more like a nation of wildlife killers
In the UK, we pride ourselves as being a nation that loves animals. We donate readily to the Dogs Trust or to Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, while 53% of us has a pet. Our pets are protected from abuse under the Animal Welfare Act, and a person can be prosecuted if the animal’s needs […]
Police slap a newly merged hunt with an ‘ASBO’ before it’s even got going
Police in Hertfordshire have slapped the Puckeridge and Essex Union Hunt with a Community Protection Notice (CPN). The requirements of the notice are extensive and will hamper the pack’s week-to-week hunting. On 26 July, Hertfordshire Constabulary announced it had issued a CPN to the Puckeridge and Essex Union Hunt. The stipulations of the notice include […]
‘Moor’ bad news for grouse shooting in run up to Inglorious 12th
As we reported on July 22nd, United Utilities (UU), the largest corporate landowner in England, announced its decision to no longer renew grouse shooting leases on its moorland. The last of those leases will end in 2027, after which time UU (unless they bow to pressure from the shooting industry) will be out of the […]
Four men given suspended prison sentences for hare coursing
Four men have been given the most severe sentences for hare coursing that we have seen in the UK. The men were hare coursing in Spalding on 9 November 2022, and were arrested by Lincolnshire Rural Crime officers. All four pleaded guilty to the charges against them. The four men, aged between 33 and 40, […]
BREAKING: United Utilities to end grouse shooting
As reported by Alex Thomson of Channel 4, “United Utilities, the largest corporate landowner in England, is pulling grouse shooting on its moorland by way of not renewing its leases when they come to an end. Its grouse shooting leases cover many high profile moorland landscapes, including the Forest of Bowland AONB, the Goyt Valley, […]
Cattistock Hunt escapes prosecution despite railway line fox chase
On 10 July, North Dorset Hunt Saboteurs reported that the Cattistock Hunt will not be prosecuted for trespassing onto railway tracks. This shows police bias in action: hunts continually get away with trespassing on railways, while members of the public doing the same face prosecution. The incident in question took place on 4 February 2023, […]
Cottesmore huntsman Sam Jones charged with assault
Cottesmore huntsman Sam Jones has finally been charged by the police after he trampled a hunt saboteur with his horse. The incident took place on 11 February 2023. Jones was arrested on 14 February, and was finally charged with common assault on 14 July. He will appear in Leicester Magistrates’ Court on 11 August. The […]
Police take no further action against Kent hunt that killed a fox in someone’s garden
Police have taken no further action against a hunt that killed a fox despite hunt saboteurs capturing the incident on video. On 14 January, the East Kent with West Street Hunt killed a fox in a residential garden in Westmarch, near Canterbury. As Protect the Wild reported at the time, hounds killed the fox after […]
Scottish court convicts Duke of Buccleuch’s Hunt supporter of assaulting a hunt saboteur
Jedburgh Sheriff Court convicted a Duke of Buccleuch’s Hunt supporter of assaulting a hunt saboteur during a meet in September 2022. Local paper Border Telegraph reported on 8 July that John Thomson plead guilty to two charges after spitting, shouting, and threatening to kill a member of Scottish Borders Hunt Saboteurs. The incident happened during […]
Wynnstay huntsman pleads guilty of threatening behaviour
Wynnstay huntsman Chris Woodward has pleaded guilty to causing intentional harassment, alarm or distress, an offence under the Public Order Act. The hunter rode his horse at a Cheshire Monitors volunteer during a fox hunting meet on 7 January 2023. Woodward galloped towards the monitor on his horse, almost knocking the man to the ground. […]
VICTORY: County Down Staghounds bites the dust
Hunt saboteurs in Northern Ireland are celebrating as news comes in that County Down Staghounds is disbanding. Hunt Saboteurs NI announced: “The criminal County Down Staghounds have decided to disband, their years of illegal carting, killing pets and causing horrific pain to wildlife is over. Good riddance you bunch of murdering scumbags.” Meanwhile, Action Against […]
Anti-social behaviour and the Law
Antisocial Behaviour and the Law Antisocial behaviour is legally defined as “behaviour by a person which causes, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress to persons not of the same household as the person’. When most people think about ‘antisocial behaviour’ they probably think about being disturbed by rowdy yobs gathering in gangs […]
Do you live in Cheshire or north Wales? You can save fox cubs from being murdered
Nine out of ten people have never heard of cubbing. Beginning later this summer, cubbing is an illegal practice, where hunts across the country train their young hounds by hunting and killing fox cubs. Cubbing marks the beginning of the hunting season, and runs from August to October. While the young hounds are trained, hunting […]
World’s tiniest violin plays for shooting industry
Last week Yahoo News reposted a Daily Telegraph puff piece for the shooting industry which ran with the headline, “Gamekeepers face ruin after last-minute change to licences.” Lamenting a normally supine government for actually (finally) recognising the terrible threat of Avian Flu to wild bird populations and that protected areas ought to be – you […]
Harassment and the Law
Harassment and the Law Sabs, monitors, and other activists/campaigners are often subjected to harassment and intimidation, especially when out in the field. In some cases the harassment may lead to an assault taking place ( > Assault and the Law). In the UK the terms ‘harassment’, ‘intimidation’ and ‘abuse’ are often used interchangeably as the […]
Melbreak Huntsman Christopher Nixon convicted of assault (Part Two)
As we reported in Part One of this article, in June 2023 Christopher Nixon (pictured above), a huntsman with the notorious Melbreak Hunt was convicted of the common assault of Darren Ward and fined £945. Mr Ward (Darren) had been trying for months to keep the Melbreak and five other fell packs off his land, […]
Melbreak Huntsman Christopher Nixon convicted of assault (Part One)
On the 12th of June, Christopher Nixon, the Melbreak Hunt’s huntmaster, was convicted of the common assault of Darren Ward, and fined a total of £945. The assault by Nixon, who was challenged while walking with seven dogs on land owned by Mr Ward, was recorded on a phone and used as evidence in court. […]
Four hunters plead not guilty after hounds kill fox in private garden
Four men from the West Norfolk Foxhounds have pleaded not guilty at Norwich Magistrates’ Court. Three were charged with various offences after hounds tore apart a fox in a residential garden in Hingham, Norfolk, on 20 February 2023. The men have also been charged, along with another man, for a separate hunting incident in Tittleshall, […]
Freshly unearthed video shows former huntsman torturing a fox cub
On 21 June, the Hunt Saboteurs Association (HSA) publicly shared footage of a man using a terrier to abuse a fox cub. It said the man in the footage was Oliver Thompson, the former huntsman of the Old Berkshire Hunt. The mobile phone footage first shows the man using a spade handle to roughly remove […]
Short-eared Owl shot and killed on Peak District grouse moor
The RSPB has released news of the shooting of a Short-eared Owl on Broomhead Estate, a notorious grouse moor in the Peak District National Park. The incident took place last summer but wasn’t publicised until police investigations had concluded. The shooting was witnessed and recorded on a mobile phone by an individual birding on the […]
Judge hands hit-and-run hunt supporter a suspended sentence
Angela Jarrom, who ran a hunt saboteur down in October 2022, pleaded guilty on 15 June. But the sab that was hit said her sentence will do little to cool acts of violence at hunt meets. Jarrom targetted Lisa Jaffray during a meet of the Cottesmore Hunt on 25 October 2022. After spotting Lisa, Jarrom […]
RSPB: The Economics of Driven Grouse Shooting Report
The RSPB (the “UK’s largest nature conservation charity, inspiring everyone to give nature a home and secure a healthy environment for wildlife’) recently published a report called ‘Driven Grouse Shooting – Assessing the economic and social impacts of future options for grouse moor management‘ Or did they? Curiously, this detailed and over 100-pages long report […]
Disgraced hunter Ollie Finnegan fails to show up for court
Cheshire huntsman Ollie Finnegan failed to turn up at Crewe Magistrates Court on 13 June 2023. He was due to enter a plea to two charges of hunting a wild mammal with dogs. Cheshire Against Blood Sports (CABS) told Protect the Wild that Finnegan’s legal representation didn’t show up to court, either. The trial has […]
Public Spaces Protection Orders
Public Space Protection Orders Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPOs) were introduced under ‘Community Protection’, Chapter 2, Section 4 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. They give local authorities power to “ban specific acts in a designated geographical area in England and Wales”, and replace the earlier designated public place orders, gating orders […]
Avon Vale Hunt finally charged after digging out foxes
Three members of the Avon Vale Hunt have been charged and will appear in court in July. Footage, which shows the men digging out two foxes and throwing one to hounds, sparked national outrage when it was aired in February. Wiltshire Hunt Saboteurs announced on Facebook: “Whipper-in Aaron Fookes charged under Animal Welfare Act and […]
Northumberland: Badger suffers excruciating death in snare
Another badger has died unnecessarily after getting caught in an illegal snare in Northumberland. The RSPCA was called out to the badger after receiving a call from the public. The charity said that the snare had become embedded in the creature’s neck and had to be cut out in three different places. The RSPCA’s Rachael […]
Dogs and the Law
Dogs and the Law We love dogs here at Protect the Wild, but through no fault of their own they are widely used by hunters, shooters, and wildlife criminals like badger baiters and hare coursers to fight, chase, retrieve, or kill wild animals. That means that we may well come across dogs (or packs of […]
West Midland Hunt Sab receives payout from police who posed as postal workers in dawn raid
A member of West Midlands Hunt Saboteurs has received a “substantial payout” after being targeted by Thames Valley Police (TVP). The sab took a civil case against the police for false imprisonment, assault, trespass and aggravated damages. TVP was given false information by a member of Warwickshire Beagles, which it was all too ready to […]
Hunt Havoc and Farmed Animals
Hunt Havoc and farmed animals Hunts need huge areas of land to hunt on. Legally they must follow a scent trail laid before setting off, and not go where they’re not wanted or not allowed. Hunts need huge areas of land to hunt on. Legally they must follow a scent trail laid before setting off, […]
New footage shows the ‘untold suffering’ of legal traps on a notorious grouse shooting estate
Moorland Monitors has captured footage of a crow caught up and unnaturally twisted in a ‘clam trap’ on open access land in the Peak District. And it shows what one person can do with just a phone. Moorland Monitors shared phone-filmed footage showing two crows in two separate cages set next to each other. It […]
Chris Packham’s succesful libel case is a win for everyone
Chris Packham has won his libel case against Country Squire Magazine. However, the good news has come at the cost of Packham’s safety as the naturalist said he now lives with the constant threat of intimidation and violence. Packham’s case began on 2 May at the High Court in London. It accused editor Dominic Wightman, […]
Puckeridge Hunt escapes conviction despite judge finding its action ‘deeply suspicious’
Huntsman Arun Squire has escaped a conviction of illegal hunting. However, the judge recognised that it wasn’t his actions that got him off the charge, but the wording of the law itself. Squire appeared at Stevenage Magistrates Court on 15 and 16 May on a Section 1 Hunting Act charge. It came after hunt saboteurs […]