Tag: national trust

Snaring in the news again

Posted on April 5, 2021April 5, 2021 by Charlie Moores

Literally every week more examples of poor snaring practice are highlighted in the media. Two such examples have been highlighted across social media this weekend by the Hunt Investigation Team and Moorland Monitors. In the first, a badger was found trapped in a snare which was “wrapped around its neck”. In the second, a dog was caught on in a snare set on Access Land on Kinder – National Trust land in the infamous wildlife crime hotspot of the Peak District ‘national park’. Incidents like this are understandably always upsetting for the owners of companion animals, but let’s also acknowledge that the snare was set to do exactly what it did: trap an animal. Dogs and foxes are closely related. they share the same capacity for sentience, for fear, for feeling pain. Unlike a pet that is (under most circumstances) fed and looked after by an owner, a wild animal has no choice but to hunt to feed itself and its family though. Countless thousands of foxes are being trapped and are suffering in snares like this every week, drawn to the overabundance of prey that shoots ‘provide’.

Hunting Office webinars | National Trust suspends ‘trail hunting’ licences

Posted on November 26, 2020November 26, 2020 by Charlie Moores

The once seemingly impervious walls that fox hunting had built around itself with the invention of so-called ‘trail hunting’ are crumbling fast. Following on from the decision to suspend ‘trail hunting’ by Forestry England because of the secretly-recorded and leaked Hunting Office webinars, the National Trust has just announced that they too have paused ‘trail hunting’ on their land and will not be issuing any licences for the remainder of the season (which ends in March). This is another huge blow for illegal fox hunting. A highly respected charity has taken another look at ‘trail hunting’ and decided that – at the moment at least – it wants nothing at all to do with it.

Mendip Farmers Hunt – hound killed on busy road

Posted on September 20, 2020September 20, 2020 by Charlie Moores

Warning – distressing image in this post:
Wiltshire Hunt Saboteurs yesterday witnessed a hunting hound used by the Mendip Farmers Hunt – whose website proclaims “We love to see visitors and children and we hunt Wednesday and Saturday in the season” – killed on the busy A39. Apart from the absurdity of even being able to state openly that they ‘hunt twice a week in the season’ (‘hunt’ not ‘trail’ or ‘drag’ hunt, and how is there even a season for this disgusting hobby?), apart from the chilling notion of involving children in bloodsports, how – all right-minded people will be asking – if hounds were following a laid-down scent as they were supposed to be, how could they have ended up on a main road dodging cars?

Two charged after fox killed during New Year hunt in East Yorkshire

Posted on July 16, 2020July 16, 2020 by Charlie Moores

It’s not that we’re deliberately looking for stories linking Yorkshire with wildlife crime, it’s more that they just keep turning up. When it’s not the region’s gamekeepers shooting or poisoning birds of prey, it seems that its so-called ‘trail hunting’ fox hunters can’t help breaking the law either. As a report in the Hull Daily Mail puts it rather prosaically, “Two men have been charged after allegedly allowing dogs to hunt a fox in East Yorkshire”.

LACS | The National Trust and Trail Hunting

Posted on June 13, 2020October 28, 2020 by Charlie Moores

We’ve written many times about the National Trust (NT, one of the UK’s most important conservation charities) and its unfortunate affair with so-called ‘trail hunting’ (see a National Trust and Trail Hunting 101 for example). We’d rather not have to keep repeating ourselves, but so-called ‘trail hunting’ is a clear example of the war on wildlife, we exist to help tackle that war, and there is no good reason whatsoever for the NT to facilitate ‘trail hunting’ on its land. It’s not just us that thinks this of course: no-one outside of hunting thinks one of the country’s most respected charities should be allowing fox hunts to break the law on charity-owned land.

National Trust and protecting wildlife

Posted on May 20, 2020May 21, 2020 by Charlie Moores

The Guardian newspaper has a piece today about how wildlife has repopulated closed National Trust properties (the Trust is one of the largest landowners in the country, and with over 5 million members potentially one of its most influential). It says that “The National Trust is reporting that emboldened wildlife, from raptors and warblers to badgers, otters and even orcas, appear to be enjoying the disappearance of humans from its gardens, castles and waterways across the UK“. Is this the same NT that facilitates illegal fox hunting on its land? Indeed it is…

Guest Post | Forestry England, National Trust, and Fox Hunting

Posted on April 9, 2020September 21, 2020 by Charlie Moores

‘There are campaigns for an end to hunting on land belonging to both the National Trust & FE. Here’s an overview of the behaviour of the licensed hunts, along with the current and upcoming campaigning efforts calling on both landowners to ban hunting. Feel free to ask yourself whilst reading whether you think these so-called ‘trail hunts’ should be granted licences to hunt on government and charity-owned land.’ Guest post by Jack Riggall

Podcast: Checking in with Nick Weston, League Against Cruel Sports

Posted on March 26, 2020March 30, 2020 by Charlie Moores

Here at The War on Wildlife Project we were thinking that as us campaigners, conservationists, and activists can’t get out to meet and see each other now, how about creating something to bring the conservation community together – everyone from individuals to grassroots organisations to larger charities – something that reminds us all that we’re still out there, still working, but that also shows the human side of things during this COVID-19 crisis. We could think of them as ‘check-ins’ – as in ‘checking-in to make sure we’re all okay’.

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