Trail Hunting Consultation - Protect the Wild

TAKE ACTION: Hunting Consultation

The government is consulting on plans to ban trail hunting a practice widely used as a cover for illegal fox hunting and the killing of other mammals.

This is your chance to speak up.

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Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing to respond to the Consultation on Proposals to Prohibit Trail Hunting in England and Wales.
I am responding as a member of the public. These responses reflect my own views.
Please find my responses below.
Question 7:
No.

The proposed definition focuses on the scent hunts claim to lay as a trail. However, evidence from activists has repeatedly shown that hunts don't even lay trails in the first place.

Legislation should instead account for the way hunts use hounds. It should define hunting as an activity where it is reasonably foreseeable that hounds may locate, pursue or hunt wild mammals, including where this arises as a consequence of reckless or deliberate conduct.

Question 8:

Hunting is a joint enterprise involving many different roles and legislation should recognise it as such. Any legal definition must cover directly contributing materially and/or physically to a group that a reasonable individual would understand was acting with the common purpose of hunting a wild mammal with hounds.

Question 9:

Yes.

Liability must extend to landowners where they have knowingly permitted access for hunting under any pretext, and wildlife is subsequently harmed or killed. This is because banning trail hunting alone doesn’t close other loopholes used by hunts to cover for illegal hunting, such as “hound exercise”.

To ensure effective enforcement, the law must place a clear duty on landowners to undertake due diligence and accept liability for the consequences of granting access. Without this, hunts will continue to rely on land access agreements as a shield, significantly undermining the intent of the legislation.

Question 10:

Yes.

Hunting is a coordinated, collective activity, and those who plan, authorise, and oversee it - including masters of the hunt and company directors - play central roles in enabling it to take place.

Liability should therefore extend to: those in direct control of the dog(s) on the day, and; those responsible for the organising, managing, or authorising use of the pack, including masters and directors.

Question 11:

Yes.

A “failure to prevent” offence should be introduced. This would apply to individuals witnessing or are aware of unlawful hunting activity but fail to take reasonable steps to prevent, report or withdraw support from it.

Enablement and facilitation (encouragement) must also be made an offence. This would make individuals liable where their actions would reasonably be seen assisting or supporting hunting activity including funding and providing equipment, transport, land access or logistical support.

A ‘going equipped’ offence should also be introduced, in line with existing hare coursing laws. This would apply where a person is found in possession of equipment, tools, or dogs in circumstances suggesting they are intended for use in locating, pursuing, digging out, or killing wild mammals, even if no hunting ultimately takes place.

These take into account the full breadth of hunting with hounds as an activity, making it more difficult for those committing offences to avoid liability.

Question 12:

Yes.

The requirement to prove intent should be removed and replaced with a foreseeability test. An offence should be committed where a reasonable person would recognise a risk that their actions could result in a wild mammal being hunted with dogs.

The definition of hunting should also be clarified to include behaviour that a reasonable person would interpret as allowing dogs to search for, locate, or pursue a wild mammal with a pack of hounds. This should include entering dogs into areas where wild mammals are likely to be present such as coverts, hedgerows, setts, and other places of rest.

New legislation must also avoid the pitfalls of recent Scottish legislation including drag hunting as a cover for live quarry hunting, broad exemptions permitting hounds to flush to guns, and licensing the use of more than two hounds.

Question 13:
Yes. It is entirely possible for dogs to be effectively trained for specific purposes without the use of animal-based scents or artificial scents designed to mimic them.
Modern dog training methods are highly advanced and already rely heavily on controlled, ethical, and non-animal-based techniques, including synthetic training aids, behavioural conditioning, and positive reinforcement. These methods are widely used across sectors including policing, search and rescue, and assistance dog training, demonstrating that effective outcomes do not depend on the use of real animal-derived scents.
The continued use of animal-based scents raises several significant concerns:

Animal welfare: The sourcing of animal-based materials for scent training can involve harm, distress, or exploitation of animals, particularly where it involves carcasses, body parts, or bodily fluids.
 	Lack of regulation and oversight: There is currently little transparency around how such materials are obtained, stored, or used, creating risks of abuse and poor welfare standards.
 	Enforcement challenges: Allowing the use of animal-based or animal-mimicking scents creates a clear loophole that makes it significantly harder to distinguish between lawful training activities and unlawful hunting practices. This is particularly relevant given well-documented concerns about trail hunting being used as a cover for illegal hunting.
 	Necessity: There is no compelling evidence that animal-based scents are required for effective training outcomes, particularly given the availability of viable alternatives.

Given these concerns, any future legislation should adopt a precautionary and enforceable approach by prohibiting the use of animal-based scents and artificial animal-mimicking scents in dog training. This would provide clarity, improve enforceability, and ensure that training practices are consistent with modern animal welfare standards.
Question 14:
No.

Evidence has shown that hunts can and will exploit any exemption. All forms of scent, whether derived from natural or artificial sources, enable hunts to disguise the hunting of live quarry, making enforcement significantly more difficult.

Question 15:

Partially.

The description reflects the intended operation of drag hunting. However, any exercising of hounds across areas where wild mammals live creates a clear and foreseeable risk that the hounds may deviate from an artificially laid scent.

Question 16:

Yes.

Hounds bred and trained to follow scent cannot be expected to ignore natural animal scents in the environment. Any form of hunting that takes dogs through areas where wild mammals live is therefore not only possible but foreseeable. Once engaged in pursuit, the distinction between drag, trail and unlawful hunting collapses. This creates significant enforcement challenges by creating ambiguity that hunts can exploit.

Given these risks, allowing drag hunting to continue would undermine the effectiveness of any ban on trail hunting.

Question 17:

Partially.

The description reflects the clean boot hunting industry’s stated intentions. However, taking any pack of hounds through environments where wild mammals are present creates a risk of pursuing live quarry.

Question 18:

Yes.

Firstly, although clean boot hunting sees hounds trained on a human scent, it still occurs in environments where wild mammals are present. Hounds cannot be completely relied upon to ignore these scents. As a result, they may switch from following a human to a wild mammal scent.

Secondly, clean boot hunting is at significant risk of misuse. As with trail hunting, hunts may use it as a smokescreen to deliberately blur the distinction between legal and illegal behaviour, creating opportunities for exploitation.

Question 19:

Yes.

There is significant risk of drag and clean boot hunting providing cover for live quarry hunting in the same way that trail hunting has done since the passing of the Hunting Act. New legislation must therefore take a comprehensive approach to all hunting with hounds. It must prevent all forms of hunting with scent hounds in environments where wild mammals are present.

Question 20:

No.

Equestrian activities such as racing, show jumping, and other recognised disciplines do not involve the use of dogs to follow scent or reflect the structure of a hunt. They are clearly distinguishable from hunting-related activities.

Question 21:

With proper oversight and planning, hunting hounds can be retired, rehomed, and/or moved into appropriate sanctuaries and other non-harmful environments. There is real world evidence that hunting hounds can be rehomed where proper effort is made.

Hunts already routinely killed hounds in the thousands every year. Concerns about the fate of existing hounds should therefore not be used as justification for maintaining current hunting practices. A ban on hunting, combined with a responsibly managed retirement program, would instead provide an opportunity for improved welfare.

Question 22:

No.

A delay would allow continued harm and create opportunities to exploit the system. The ban should take effect as soon as possible.

Question 23:

No.

There is no evidence to show that the passing of the Hunting Act had any negative impact on people living or working in rural communities. Furthermore there isn’t a single, homogenous ‘rural community’ for this to apply to.

Instead, hunting can have negative impacts on people living in rural areas. This inclsudes hounds entering private property, the chasing and killing of domestic animals, road havoc, and trespass by hunts themselves. The positive impacts of hunting on a community’s social and economic life are replicable through alternative activities, some of which may flourish in the absence of hunting with hounds.

Question 24:

Hunts will be affected, but the economic life of hunts and the hunting industry is predicated on numerous criminal activities anyway. Ending an economy of illegality should be the primary task of legislation. Where legal activities are conducted, alternatives should be encouraged.

Question 25:

Most people financially connected with hunting do not depend on it for their livelihood. While some impact is inevitable, that impact won’t be so great as to cause financial distress. The protection of wildlife must take priority.

Question 26:

There is little evidence showing any impact on businesses indirectly linked to hunting suffering negative consequences following the passing of the Hunting Act. With hunting now even less relevant to the economy and social life of England and Wales, it’s likely that any impact is extremely limited.

Question 27:

Positively.

Hunting (including trail hunting) disturbs and harms wildlife and rural ecologies, including protected species such as badgers and otters. There are also risks of hounds carrying biological contaminants throughout the countryside.

Question 28:

Yes.

It is important to learn lessons from Scotland, where recently strengthened legislation has nonetheless allowed some hunts to continue chasing and killing wildlife. Meaningful changeo to the Hunting Act must consider:

Unambiguous definitions that focus on outcomes rather than intent
 	Replacing intent with a foreseeability or recklessness standard
 	Strict liability for the hunt as a whole rather than individual members
 	Criminalising the facilitation and enablement of hunting, as well as ‘going equipped’ to hunt
 	Preventing the two-dog exemption and licensing frameworks found in recent Scottish legislation

Resourcing and training of enforcement bodies in hunting with hounds as well as expanded powers to investigate and act

Consideration must also be given to the broader environmental and animal welfare impacts of hunting with hounds, such as risks to non-target species and negative impacts on local communities.

Question 29:

Protect the Wild has compiled years of evidence of hunting with hounds, drawn from field data, eyewitness accounts, and detailed analysis. These include reports on hunting activity and the welfare of hunting hounds, which provide valuable insights for consideration when developing future legislation. All reports are available on Protect the Wild’s website.

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