The latest investigations, breaking stories and special reports from BTM. We expose the criminality and intimidation of so-called hunt saboteurs across the UK, giving a voice to the rural communities they target.
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Foxes, hounds, gannets. Rob Pownall's campaigns are never short of animals. What they are short of is any account of what happens to them afterwards. The pattern was set in the spring of 2022, when Keep The Ban, the group Pownall founded, went to its supporters with two
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A skulk of sanctimonious sabs arrived at Leicester Square theatre on Monday 6 July to be entertained by an array of comedians, BBC hosts and sabotage sympathisers alike. Whilst the comedy evening was labelled as ‘Up the Anti’, Daniel Foxx’s BBC show ‘Welcome to Hell’ might be a better
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The BBC has confirmed that Winterwatch will not return after 14 years, retired in favour of a video podcast called Naturewatch. The corporation attributes the decision to an "evolving commissioning strategy" and to the wider funding squeeze that has already claimed 550 jobs as part of a £500
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Rob Pownall promised the Makerfield by-election would be a "national platform" to end hunting with hounds. The voters of Makerfield returned a verdict: 18 of them agreed. For weeks, the founder of Protect the Wild told anyone who would listen that the Makerfield by-election was his chance to
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On the eve of the consultation deadline, campaigners and their hounds brought the fight to DEFRA's doorstep, and a Labour peer led the charge against her own government. 24 hours before the government's consultation on trail hunting closes for good, the countryside brought its answer to
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At the League Against Cruel Sports rally outside Parliament on 9 May, a foxhound lay quietly at the campaigners' feet. Handled by Charlotte Smith of the Hull Wildlife Protectors, it became the unofficial mascot of the day, photographed alongside the broadcaster Chris Packham and his stepdaughter, the presenter Megan
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On 18 June, voters in Makerfield will go to the polls in a by-election that could return Andy Burnham to Parliament and trigger a Labour leadership contest. The same day, the Defra consultation on banning trail hunting closes. It is worth asking why twelve MPs have spent the run-up to
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Hunt saboteurs are no strangers to confronting those who support legal trail hunting. Over the years, their tactics have become depressingly familiar: harassment, stalking, verbal abuse and physical intimidation – all disguised as activism. Even against that grim backdrop, however, the recent conduct of one sab has managed to lower the
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Billed as a watershed moment, a rally that would shift the anti-trail hunting debate and energise the movement, the Leage Against Cruel Sports' (LACS) rally outside Parliament on Saturday 9 May was something of a damp squib, defined by minimal attendees and somewhat baffling speeches. It was just the
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On 2 May, members of Nottingham Hunt Sabs, West Yorkshire Hunt Sabs and South Northants Hunt Sabs were active in the countryside near Kings Newton, where the Dove Valley hunt was meeting that day. According to a source familiar with the day's movements, the saboteurs were masked, their
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There is a particular breed of animal rights lover who wakes each morning convinced that the hills and hedgerows of Britain cannot turn on their axis without their personal supervision. Derek Farr is one of them. Not out in the field, but from the comfort of a Facebook comment box,
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The Consultation On 26 March, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs launched a formal public consultation on banning trail hunting in England and Wales - a practice introduced after the Hunting Act 2004 as a lawful alternative to fox hunting, using an animal-scented rag. The government has given