Tag: jack riggall

Hunting Office webinars | Forestry England suspend ‘trail hunting’ licences

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The fall-out from the leaked/secretly recorded Hunting Office ‘trail hunting’ webinars is beginning to look rather like an avalanche: the snowball that started the whole thing may have taken some time to roll down the slope, but boy is it picking up pace now. News outlets took some time to carefully go over the material and come to their conclusions, but stories began to appear, first off in The Canary (‘Leaked webinar catches retired police chief advocating a ‘smokescreen’ to help fox hunters’) on the 18th, followed by The Times and others, and most damningly early morning yesterday on the ITV news website. Now both The Telegraph and ITV News are tonight reporting another blow to the hunts: Forestry England have suspended licences for ‘trail hunting’.

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Guest Post | Forestry England & Fox Hunting #5 – the United Pack in Shropshire

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“In Shropshire, Forestry England has been licencing the United Pack. The United Pack are a hunt I’ve encountered on National Trust land when they had a ‘trail hunting’ licence for the site, but because myself and others documented the hunt’s terriermen on the site in December 2018, the licence was revoked. On top of their regular trespass across National Trust land, information requests have revealed that the United Pack regularly hunt across Forestry England’s land without permission too, often enough for the government department to threaten the use of solicitors and then write to the Master of Foxhounds Association [MFHA]…” Guest post by Jack Riggall

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Guest Post | Forestry England & Fox Hunting #4 – New Petition Against Licences Launched

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“Very recently, my own petition calling for an end to ‘trail’ hunting licences being granted came to a close, with 11,949 signatures. I’m very glad to see that Robert Pownall from the anti-hunt campaign group Keep The Ban immediately took up the issue and launched another petition to end these licences. As I write this, the petition has been active for less than a week and has already gathered over 10,000 signatures, which means Defra will once again have to publish a written response to defend fox hunting on public land – very soon after having to do the same with my petition. I’m confident that Robert’s petition can gather over 100,000 signatures and I hope the fact that calls for Forestry England to stop giving out hunting licences aren’t slowing down shows the decision makers that this issue isn’t going away.” Guest post by Jack Riggall

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Guest Post: Forestry England and Fox Hunting #3 | DEFRA’s Petition Response

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“On 10th September, Defra responded to my petition calling for an end to fox & hare hunting on public land, doing so on behalf of Forestry England . The War on Wildlife Project has already posted about this and I have a few thoughts of my own to share as well. Firstly, in defending so-called ‘trail hunting’, Defra expects us to believe it actually exists when in reality it is a farce. The examples I referred to in the petition itself were of hunts tearing foxes apart, hounds rampaging through residential areas and more. Why does Defra think these incidents happen with such regularity if hunting organisations were genuinely trying to avoid harming wildlife? Secondly, the Kimblewick Hunt ban receives a mention. Defra holds this up as an example of Forestry England taking action, but it only shows the opposite to be true.” Guest post by Jack Riggall

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Forestry Commission Chair on hunt sabs and transparency (FOI request)

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Jack Riggall, an independent hunt monitor and anti-hunting campaigner, is writing a series of posts for us on fox hunts and Forestry England, and we were intrigued to be forwarded a letter this week obtained under a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to Defra which at the very least suggests that Sir William Worsley, the newly-appointed Chair of the Forestry Commission (Forestry England is an Executive Agency of the Forestry Commission), is not well inclined towards Hunt Saboteurs (who work in the field to protect wild animals from illegal hunting of course) or ‘animal rights and environmental activists’.

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Government response to “Stop Forestry England granting licenses for Fox & Hare hunts”

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Jack Riggall, an independent hunt monitor and anti-hunting campaigner, is writing a series of posts for us on fox hunts and Forestry England (FE), the government department responsible for managing and promoting the nation’s forests (search Jack Riggall). He also launched an e-petition asking FE to stop giving fox and hare hunts licences to ‘trail hunt’ on their (our) land: last year FE doled out 34 licences, with minimal supervision of the hunts concerned. The petition gained more than 10,000 signatures, triggering a government response which we’ve copied – and of course commented on.

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Guest Post | Forestry England & Fox Hunting #2 – the Chair’s Endorsement of Bloodsport Lobbyists

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This second entry is just a brief outline of something that I think should be highlighted. Throughout the last hunting season, Forestry England gave out 34 ‘trail’ hunting licences. It didn’t really seem to matter what hunts did [with the exception of the Kimblewick Hunt], as hunters were at various times convicted and investigated with no apparent impact on how Forestry England considered licence applications. Part way through the season, the Forestry Commission appointed a new Chair, Sir William Worsley. The Commissioner’s Register of Interests were later published and amongst other things, the new Chairman is a member of the Countryside Alliance, the pro-bloodsports lobby group.

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Guest Post | Forestry England & Fox Hunting #1: The Portman Hunt

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Think fox hunting, which was banned by the Hunting Act 2004, is a ‘thing of the past’? Think again. Hunts have been breaking the law since the Act was passed – helped by sympathetic landowners who issue licences despite a wealth of material proving the terms of those licences are being routinely broken. Jack Riggall, an independent hunt monitor and anti-hunting campaigner, is writing a series of posts on fox hunts and Forestry England, the government department responsible for managing and promoting the nation’s forests. Jack has written other guest posts and recorded a number of podcasts with us.

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