After the introduction of the 2004 Hunting Act, hunts across the UK sought to retain the recreation and sense of community offered by hound sports by adopting trail hunting: a legal practice that involves riders (on horseback or on foot) following a manufactured scent along a pre-determined trail with hounds and/or beagles. This replicates a traditional hunt but without foxes being chased or killed.
Two hunts in West Sussex, the Crawley and Horsham Hunt (CHH) and the Chiddingfold, Leconfield and Cowdray Hunt (CLCH), are leading lights of this form of hunting, maintaining strong turnouts at their weekly Saturday meets. These meets regularly celebrate a tradition at the heart of British countryside culture, exemplifying the legally sanctioned activity of trail hunting. Moreover, the hunts encourage people from all walks of life to get involved, upholding a strong sense of community spirit contrary to the class-related accusations which hunt antis so frequently leverage against the sport. The CLCH echo this sentiment clearly on their website:
“Visitors are welcome: following Hounds, whether on horseback or on foot, is a unique way to experience the countryside. For riders, hunting offers a social, non-competitive riding discipline for any ability and age. Among our followers are nurses, teachers, retirees, children, farmers, journalists, students, small business owners and full time parents. We are as broad a group of people as you’ll meet anywhere.”
As part of this drive towards inclusivity, both hunts are active on social media: regularly posting details of their trail hunts for avid followers and interested locals alike.
Unfortunately, despite their exemplary practices, hunt saboteurs continually target these legal, community-spirited groups. The CHH and CLCH are constantly targeted by several different saboteur organisations which employ guerrilla tactics and misinformation with the sole intention of ruining a pleasant, legal countryside sport. As a result, one can’t help but wonder: what really inspires these activists…?
Recently, a plethora of hunt saboteur groups previously operating across the South East were forced to merge after their membership plummeted. No doubt this was a result of the evidently ethical behaviour of the CHH and CLCH, which does little to inspire the more rationally minded animal rights activists. Nowadays, the Brighton Hunt Saboteurs, West Sussex Hunt Sabs, East Surrey Hunt Saboteurs, and Surrey Hunt Sabs all head out together as a rag-tag group of ultras, looking to stir up trouble.
However, their attempts at disinformation on Facebook are frankly laughable. One recent report from the West Sussex Hunt Sabs on 2 December, after a day out of bothering the CCH and CLCH, made the shocking claim of seeing an actual fox! Alive! In the countryside…
There is nothing which links this fox to the hunts’ trail-based activities whatsoever; seeing one single fox (nowhere near any hunt and in the wild) over the course of a day is hardly implicit of illegal activity. The sabs’ accusation is built on mere speculation, revealing their true aim – to spread disinformation and sow resentment in the countryside. It seems to be the only way they can attack these upstanding hunts.
A report from South Coast Hunt Sabs attempts to spread exactly the same speculative lies:
Once again, no evidence stands to evince this claim. It is mere speculation that this fox was being hunted and quite clearly an exercise in wishful thinking. These sabs are quite seriously clutching at straws.
Further evidence shows how these groups are concerned with little more than looking for a fight. A video, once again posted on Facebook, displays a worrying case of sab-schadenfreude.
The video, recorded by an East Surrey Hunt Sab, shows a rider falling from their horse behind a hedge, potentially causing serious harm. The sab cameraman delights in the rider’s likely pain and misfortune, laughing.
Sabs in the Surrey/Sussex area clearly have no purpose other than to spread disinformation and revel at others’ misfortune, loitering around legal trail hunts to cause problems.
What, then, is really motivating these sabs? Are they bored, with nothing better to do than mess other people around? Are they criminals, hidden behind their masks, causing a public nuisance behind the smokescreen of moral pretence? If foxes are their concern, why do they proceed to disrupt and lie about hunts who do not hunt foxes?
Sabs’ motivations must ultimately be individual, though unifying themes of criminality and extremism are prevalent among their ringleaders. We need only look to the likes of Paul Allman, Gemma Barnes, Mel Broughton, and Elizabeth Hart, to demonstrate the twisted mindset that motivates many in the saboteur community. It is likely that similar individuals are also hiding in the masked camps of Sussex and Surrey.
Additionally, the sabs’ sense of schadenfreude and love of violence further indicates an irrational dislike for those who actively engage in trail hunting. Sabs will often view hunting as an elite pursuit (despite the efforts and successes of groups like CCH and CLCH to be inclusive and welcoming) and will pursue a campaign of class warfare that seeks to divide those who call the countryside home.
Hopefully the sabs will learn and a solution can be reached. For now, the hunts in West Sussex and Surrey must continue to uphold their high standards. The sabs’ attempts will only continue to weaken their own cause and image.
