Fell Hunting by Alison Bolt

Fell Hunting August 2005 Most of the shows will soon be over, the warm sunny weather has broken, the swallows are gathering on the telegraph wires – and the fell hounds which have been out at walk all summer have suddenly moved up a gear as they savour the scents of autumn. At this time of year hunting people begin to gear themselves up for the coming season. But this year is different. At all the shows the “crack” has centred on just one topic: “How are we going to survive the ban on hunting?” On 18th February this year the 2005 Hunting Act came into force, and since that date the use of dogs to hunt all mammals except rats and rabbits has been illegal. Cumbria has eight packs of fell foxhounds (foot packs), two mounted foxhound packs, three packs of beagles, one of harriers and one of minkhounds. In all, that represents a total of around 400 dogs, carefully bred over hundreds of years; fit, healthy animals, well-adjusted, born to do a specific job. But what do we do with them now? Friendly though they are, they are pack animals, not pets. Re-homing is pretty much impracticable – even experienced hound walkers are reluctant to take them on in the winter, when the weather is cold and wet and the hounds know they should be hunting so won’t settle. The idea of putting down these fit, healthy, beautiful animals is just unthinkable. And in any case, the legal challenges to the Hunting Act are still not decided, so there is still hope that the Act could, just possibly, be repealed. So the hunts are working towards a way of surviving, at least in the foreseeable future, and keeping their hounds healthy, active and well cared-for. So what are the hunts planning to do in September? Well, in no case are they intending simply to flout the law and go hunting. Activities fall into two types – hound exercise of some kind and legal fox control. As far as I am aware, all the hunts will attempt to carry out a mixture of both kinds of activity. The hounds need to be exercised regularly – several days a week at a minimum. And not just at weekends, when people tend to be available, but weekdays as well, so putting them on leads is just not practicable. How would we find twenty able-bodied people to take two hounds each for a ten-mile walk three or four days a week? These are big dogs and take a lot of exercising! Probably most hunts will try laying a drag for hounds to follow, in an attempt not only to provide exercise but also to maintain the interest of the followers; without followers there is no income to fund hound feed, vehicles, kennel staff, premises etc. The huntsman must continue to be employed, for he is the only person all the hounds have learned to obey. Hounds follow the horn, not the whistle. But how do you tell the hounds that they are no longer allowed to hunt? This is what they’ve been bred to do for hundreds of years, it’s in their blood, their genes. In the end, the only way to stop a hound from hunting is to kill it. Is this what the government would have us do? To exercise its hounds, every hunt has to get written permission from every farmer or landowner whose land the hounds might enter to go on their land. This could be as many as 400 individual landowners, some with only one or two fields. Imagine the time and paperwork involved! Bodies such as the National Trust, the Forestry Commission, United Utilities can issue licences for legal hound activities. The administrative burden is daunting. But the only alternative is to get rid of the hounds, so they will do it. Somehow. And then there is the legal predator control. Foxes, hares and mink can still be killed, of course – the ban on hunting gives them no protection, rather the reverse. It is legal to take two hounds out to flush a fox or hare from cover and then shoot it. All the hunts owe it to their farmers to control foxes by thinning out the population during the winter and at lambing time. Farmers will not usually permit hound exercise on their land unless the hunt carries out fox control in return. Many traditional hunt supporters are deeply unhappy about shooting foxes, but it will have to be done. The hunts will no doubt approach this in a responsible way, but they do not have control over every private individual who decides to go out with a gun. There is no law to determine what kind of gun should be used, or how well trained or experienced the person doing the shooting must be. Even the best shot cannot guarantee a clean kill every time, and it is common for a fox to have its jaw or a leg shot away, or to be hit several times and still escape to die a horrible and lingering death. Compare that with a kill by hounds – over in seconds, and no possibility of a wounded animal getting away. Hunting as a means of wildlife management had much to recommend it. The fox has no natural predator now that the wolf is extinct in Britain; hounds were the next best thing. As ever in the natural world, the animals most likely to be killed were the old, the weak, the sick - and the plain stupid. Tough on the individual, perhaps, but good for the species. A fit, healthy, intelligent animal nearly always escaped – out of breath, perhaps, but unharmed. Shooting and snaring – still legal – are indiscriminate. Hunting stipulated a close season during which time litters of young could be reared in relative safety; now they are fair game all year round. In the case of foxes, vixens with cubs can be shot, leaving the cubs to starve to death. If an animal is wounded and takes refuge in a badger sett it has to be left. Too many are not killed instantly. The mood among hunting people is marked by frustration, sadness, disbelief – and, above all, anger. Anger at a government which could ignore the wishes of the population as a whole to bring in the Hunting Act. Anger at a government which promised legislation based on “principle and evidence” and then proceeded to give in to bigotry and prejudice. Anger at the many MP’s who voted to ban hunting in spite of knowing nothing about it and whose urban constituencies made it an irrelevance. Anger at those MP’s (my own included) who steadfastly refused to go out and see for themselves how hunting was conducted before voting to ban it. Anger at the MP’s who have succeeded in wrecking the way of life of a rural minority which presumably has no business to exist in the brave new world of “New Labour” with its urban preoccupations and life-style. This Act has nothing at all to do with animal welfare, but everything to do with bigotry, ignorance and prejudice. Rural communities have traditionally been essentially law-abiding. They need to be, given the scarcity of police officers in the countryside! But I am afraid that the hunting ban may have put this quality under threat. Already, many thousands of normally decent people have signed a declaration to say that they are willing to break this particular law. As things are at present they are not intending to carry out the threat, preferring to wait and hope that the legal challenges to the Hunting Act will find in their favour. But if the time comes when the legal challenges fail, I cannot see people meekly knuckling under, putting down their beloved hounds and taking up tiddlywinks or stamp-collecting. Tony Blair and his Labour cronies have other things to think about just now. But the hunting people of Britain, and of Cumbria in particular, know that right is on their side, and they will never give in. Opinion varies as to what the effect of the Hunting Act will be on the fox population of England and Wales. Some say that there will be a population explosion, with foxes getting bolder, that there will be more frequent attacks on small children and pets, and that diseases such as mange will become endemic, even in rural areas. Others predict that the fox will become an endangered species because farmers will shoot so many that they will simply be wiped out. Personally, I think that different areas will see different effects. In those parts of the country where foxes are a real threat to fell sheep and free-range pigs and poultry, I think foxes may well be hit so hard that they become all but extinct. But in other parts of the country, where foxes are less of a threat to farm animals or game birds, they may well become a danger and a health hazard to the population. Everyone is agreed on one thing, however; there will be a big increase in suffering among foxes, whether caused by wounding, starvation or disease, and this causes me and other hunting people great distress. Incidentally, it is significant that the government has expressly stated that it does not intend to monitor the effect of the hunting ban on the fox population! To my mind, if a law is good it must show that someone or something, somewhere, has benefited from its enactment. Who, or what, has benefited from the Hunting Act of 2005? Not the men and women whose livelihoods are endangered. Not the thousands of men, women and children whose way of life has been brutally torn apart. Not the hounds, whose very existence is under threat. Not the police who will have the unenviable task of policing the law. Not the farmers who have lost an important method of predator control. Not the pubs, village halls, B&B’s and village shops for whom hunt-related events have traditionally been an important source of income. And least of all the fox.