40 dogs to kill a fox: Amending the Hunting Act 2004

Gregory Gordon, Guildhall Chambers

If hunting is banned, I might as well leave the country and spend the rest of my life skiing.1 So said, it is reported, the heir to the throne. It must be frightening and confusing to find yourself on the wrong side of history just as the tides of social acceptability change against you.

Opponents of the Hunting Act 2004 assured us it would destroy rural livelihoods, lead to the destruction of thousands of bloodhounds and overrun the countryside with foxes. Now that none of the above has come to pass, and public opinion remains firmly in favour of the Act, you would be forgiven for expecting that those who enjoy watching a pack of dogs tear a fox apart had nowhere left to turn. Not so.

Free Vote

As early as next Wednesday [15 July 2015] the Government plans to allow a free vote in the Commons to relax the law on hunting mammals with dogs. The Conservatives are not yet fulfilling their manifesto pledge to allow a vote on the full repeal of the Act, but may not need to if their deceptively dry proposed amendments are passed: the tortuously named Hunting Act (Exempt Hunting) (Amendment) Order 2015.

Currently, only two dogs are permitted to “flush” a fox (who has, for fear of its life, taken cover underground) to the surface where the barrel of a gun awaits. The amendments would permit 40 hounds to do the job.

Why? Are some burrows so cavernous that only 40 dogs could find a fox hidden therein? No. Collaring a single dog (a terrier, not a hound) with a radio tracker to monitor its progress underground isn’t cheap, and using dogs in this way risks injury to them – more dogs underground won’t make them safer. In fact the Act prohibits “the use of more than one dog below ground at any one time”,2 a requirement unaffected by the proposed amendments. So, for what are the other 39 dogs required? This has nothing to do with “managing the fox population in the most effective and humane manner”3 and everything to do with gutting the Hunting Act by the back door.

The sole legitimate purpose under the Act of a “dig out” (flushing a fox from underground) is to shoot it – it cannot be hunted by the dogs.4 Now imagine 40 hounds in the vicinity of a fleeing fox. Can the marksman make a clean shot? Will the pack sit on their tails and watch, unmoving, as their quarry scampers into the distance? These are hounds, don’t forget, that are bred and trained to hunt and kill foxes.

The hounds will chase the fox. They may catch it and kill it. And any prosecutor who suggests that the hunt intended this outcome (the required mens rea) will be met with pleas of ignorance: that the hunt brought the hounds under control as soon as practicable; that the

1 http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/oct/17/prince-charles-policy-britain-run 2 Schedule 1, Paragraph 2(4). 3 www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33459734 4 Schedule 1, Paragraph 1: Stalking and Flushing Out

hounds did what was in their nature to do, as if the Master Huntsman and the Whippers-In had no hand in their upbringing. If passed, the proposed amendments will render enforcement of the Act problematic, to say the least. These, in the language of DEFRA, are the “technical amendments” that will allow for effective “pest control”.5

Unenforceable Legislation?

That is already the charge levelled at the Hunting Act by the blood sport lobbyists, and it remains true that the Act is beset by caveats and loopholes designed (by those lobbyists) to allow hunts to continue in an ostensibly legitimate way.

Trail hunting (distinct from the 19th century sport of drag hunting, a harmless and entertaining gallop through the countryside) is the practice of laying a scent trail for the hounds to follow in such a way as to mimic the movements of a fox, often in landscape that a fox would typically inhabit. A rag soaked in fox urine (or chemical substitute) combined with adhesive is dragged through the fields and hedgerows, sometimes quickly and straight to mimic a fox in flight, sometimes slowly, turning and doubling back on itself. To make the ‘hunt’ realistic, none of the hunters or mounted followers know the route.

There is one problem with trail hunting: it looks for all the world like actual hunting. Introduced in response to the Act, the practice can see quad bikes trundle up and down farm tracks dragging dry cloths to fool the watching saboteurs. The hunters then chase live quarry and claim that they could not know that they weren’t following a pre-laid trail.6 Trail hunting is the practice promoted by the hunting lobby as providing “activity for hounds and their followers during the ‘temporary’ ban”,7 maintaining the hounds’ nose for a fox until they can hunt the real thing once more.

Against this well organised flouting of the criminal law is an increasingly resource starved police force with more pressing targets than wildlife crime, but also an increasingly well trained and equipped band of volunteer monitors (often ex-police officers and investigators, employed by charities such as the League Against Cruel Sports) who face physical violence if spotted by the hunt.8,9,10 Despite these stacked odds, prosecutions under the Hunting Act between 2005 (when it came into force) and 2014 have led to 378 guilty verdicts, a respectable conviction rate of 64%.11

5 www.gov.uk/government/news/amendments-to-hunting-act-proposed On the other hand, the RSPCA insist that “there is no scientific evidence to support the argument that hunting with dogs is necessary for controlling the fox population.” As a Government department, it might perhaps be prudent to at least consider your position afresh if the RSPCA is your opposition. 6 www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/9705927.Guilty__three_Crawley_and_Horsham_hunters_convicted_of_ illegal_fox_hunting/ 7 www.countryside-alliance.org/ca/file/_Revised_Hunting_Handbook_Sept_2005.pdf 8 www.league.org.uk/news-and-opinion/news-stories/2013/june/cheshire-hunt 9 www.gloucestershireecho.co.uk/Otis-Ferry-pay-thousands-compensation-attack/story-20842685- detail/story.html 10 www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/9931126.Hunt_member_slashed_tyre_on_protester___s_car/ 11 www.league.org.uk/news-and-opinion/press-releases/2015/jun-15/moj-hunting-act-conviction-rate

The Act does require amendment, but only in order to redress the balance, and considered suggestions have been made should those with the power wish to listen.12 What it does not need is to be torn apart whilst Parliament looks the other way. Prior to voting on this bitterly contested issue next Wednesday, the Government will allow a paltry 90 minutes of debate.13 One might reasonably expect our elected representatives to at least do justice to legislation that is supported by a majority of the population (even in rural areas as high as 78% support the ban on fox hunting against 19% who oppose it).14,15

Blood on their Foreheads

Tim Bonner, the Countryside Alliance’s Head of Campaigns believes that the proposed amendments to the Act will “meet the immediate needs of the rural community.”16 Not flood defence, or soil protection standards, or capital assistance for small holdings – but the immediate need to kill more foxes.

Hunting with dogs has a proud history. The alliance between man and his best friend allowed modern humans to overcome our hominid relatives the Neanderthals, forty thousand years ago, in the brutal life and death competition for resources.17 What our ancestors would make of their modern day counterparts – red coats, exorbitant members fees, supporters on quad bikes providing coffee in flasks – perhaps fortunately we will never know.

12 www.league.org.uk/~/media/Files/LACS/Publications/Hunting-Act-Report-2014.pdf 13 www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/09/government-publishes-amendment-fox-hunting-act-free-vote 14 www.ipsosmori.com/Assest/Docs/Ipsos%20MORI%20Hunting%20Research%20December%202014%20 trend%20.pdf, 15 www.gloucestershireecho.co.uk/Otis-Ferry-pay-thousands-compensation-attack/story-20842685- detail/story.html 16 www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33459734 17 www.theguardian.com/science/2015/mar/01/hunting-with-wolves-humans-conquered-the-world- neanderthal-evolution