Hunt season will be starting this weekend
Thousands of people will be taking to the countryside across the South West this weekend at the official start of the hunting season.
With the end of the month falling on a Sunday, opening meets this year will be taking place from today until next Saturday.
Alison Hawes, South West regional director for the Countryside Alliance, will be joining the hunt at Michelcombe near Holne on Dartmoor.
She said: "We're really looking forward to a good season, and fingers crossed we won't be frozen like we were last year, when the extreme weather interrupted many hunts."
Mrs Hawes said it would be "naive" to say this would be the final season under the hunting ban, but said they were "still confident" there would be a repeal within this Government's term in office.
Other hunts having their opening meet today include the North Cornwall Hunt at Hamatethy near St Breward, and the Spooners & West Dartmoor Hunt meeting at Down House, in Whitchurch, Tavistock.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) is warning hunts to act within the law or face the consequences. Latest figures on prosecutions under the Hunting Act reveal they are at their highest level yet, with convictions almost doubled in 2009 compared to 2008. This brings the total number of convictions under the Hunting Act to 145.
Robbie Marsland, UK Director of IFAW, said: "As the hunting season begins, these prosecution figures send a clear message to anyone who thinks they can ride roughshod over the law.
"IFAW is quite happy for hunters to go out with their dogs and horses and ride across the countryside. The ban doesn't stop the spectacle and the excitement of hunting – it just outlaws the chasing and killing of wild animals."
10 Comments
by 4foxsake, idiot central
Tuesday, November 02 2010, 3:41PM
“Detested sport,/That owes its pleasure to another's pain;/That feeds upon the sobs and dying shrieks/Of harmless nature"”
by Hawklord, Ankh Morpork
Tuesday, November 02 2010, 1:34PM
“Years ago I worked at the new Channel 4 HQ in London near Victoria station,there was a fox living on the site,picture our surprise when a man in a white van turned up to remove it.We queried this as we were told by the country alliance that the best why to deal with foxes was to hunt them with upper class twits on horses and packs of hounds,this was a few years ago now,and I am sure I read somewhere that hunting was banned,so whats going on I am totally confused now?”
by Baz, Newlyn
Monday, November 01 2010, 7:36PM
“I'm a big fan of the hunt but wont be there for it. Is there any way they can film it and put it on the internet for us absent fans?”
by Charles Henry 1945-(diuturnity), Somersetshire
Monday, November 01 2010, 4:00PM
“:| For all those with Rose Tinted Specs.
http://www.charleshenry.co.uk/thoughts/index.php?p=960”
by Charles Henry 1945-(diuturnity), Somersetshire
Monday, November 01 2010, 3:53PM
“:| David; if you could deal in the facts and not specious and fallacious distortion of them all the time when it comes to a subject like hunting, people may start to listen to you. . And when you have done as much for the welfare of both humans and animals as I have in your life, you too will feel proud and not need anyone's sympathy. . You have obviously never lost any livestock to foxes. . Are you sure you want to continue with your thinly disguised invective? . Best Charles
http://www.charleshenry.co.uk/thoughts/index.php?p=574”
by David, St Austell
Monday, November 01 2010, 2:31PM
“I don't think you need to belong to a particular political party to realise that hunting a wild animal to exhaustion so that a pack of dogs can tear it to pieces is cruel. This also applies to rearing birds so that weekends where people with more money than sense can shoot at them. If you can't see that Charles you have my sympathy.”
by Charles Henry 1945-(diuturnity), Somersetshire
Monday, November 01 2010, 2:21PM
“:| As usual with the Labour Party supporters, they never have intelligent comment, just the usual invective because of their guilt over the Labour Party's incompetence.
Lest we all forget.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU_fzCpwrNc”
by youngcornwall, uk
Sunday, October 31 2010, 5:56PM
“St Just Feast 1st Monday in November, this is the official start of the hunting season.”
by Jerry Jones, Dorset
Saturday, October 30 2010, 9:49PM
“No Joe that was the peasant shooting season.”
by Joe, Bristol
Saturday, October 30 2010, 12:13PM
“I thought it started a few weeks ago, when the Tories started to hound,and chase the most vunerable amongst us, like the poor, the homless, and the disabled?”