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Behind The Facade: The Truth About The Boxing Day Parade |
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The annual Boxing Day Hunt Parade is a traditional fixture in many towns’ Christmas calendars, with families turning out to enjoy the ‘spectacle’. The hunt lingers for a while, drinking port, eating sausage rolls and basking in the admiring gaze of the public. Eventually, the huntsman blows his horn, signaling it’s time to start hunting, and they leave the crowds behind. |
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So, what happens next? Here, we provide a step-by-step, behind-the-scenes account of how the rest of the day unfolds. |
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The disgraced Avon Vale Hunt faced protesters at their Boxing Day meet in Lacock 2022.
Image: Wiltshire Hunt Sabs |
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After leaving the parade, the hunt proceeds to the first place they will search, known as the ‘draw’. Hounds are cast into the first wood to LOOK for their quarry – in our example, the hunt is searching for foxes. To ensure ‘sport’ for the paying subscribers, any badger setts or fox earths in the wood would have been checked by the hunt earlier in the day using terriers. If foxes were found, they may have been bagged to be released and chased later—ensuring the field and foot supporters remain entertained. Once checked, setts and earths would then be blocked to prevent fleeing foxes from using them as a refuge later in the day. |
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Tools of the trade: terrier, spade and a locator collar for when the terrier is placed into an earth or badger sett. |
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This poor vixen was bagged and buried alive by terriermen from the Cotswold Hunt.
Image: Cirencester Illegal Hunt Watch |
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When hounds catch the scent of a fox—or, during mating season, a brace of foxes—the chase begins. The fox runs, desperately seeking safety, with hounds in pursuit. Every participant then plays a role in ensuring the fox cannot escape, from yelling and whistling by foot followers to pointing out the fox’s direction to the huntsman. |
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A hunt supporter shows the Beaufort huntsman the direction of a fleeing fox. Image: Wiltshire Hunt Sabs |
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The fox is not evolved to endure a protracted chase and will try to find sanctuary as soon as they can. This is where the facade is well and truly left behind and those characters who were lurking behind the hunt on their quad bikes come into play. These are the terriermen – busy earlier in the day blocking earths – and are the “soft underbelly” of hunting as described by Mark Hankinson, former Director of the discredited Hunting Office. |
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The Mendip Farmers Hunt and their terriermen. Images: Mendip Hunt Sabs |
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Terriermen are dispatched to dig out or flush out any fox that has gone to ground. The fox may then be thrown to the hounds, forced to run on, shot, or placed into their quads to be hunted again later. |
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Sabs stopped this fox from being killed after she was dug out of a badger sett by terriermen from the Axe Vale Hunt. |
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The entire cruel procedure repeats throughout the day until darkness makes further hunting impossible. Any animals that manage to escape capture will retreat to whatever shelter they can find, shaken and traumatised by the day’s events.
Terrier work is the dark side of hunting that truly exposes the myth of “trail hunting.” Because of this, terriermen are notoriously camera-shy. Just last month, a female hunt saboteur was badly beaten and robbed by terriermen from the Mendip Farmers Hunt while attempting to stop a dig-out.
Hunt Sabs will be on the front line to protect hunted animals on Boxing Day, as they are throughout the hunting season. Support us by joining here: HSA Membership. |
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Terrier work could be effectively stopped if the government removes the “Code of Practice” embedded in the Hunting Act. Take action today: email your MP and the Environment Secretaryto demand an end to this cruel practice and a strengthened Hunting Ban. |
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Get involved!Find out how you can be part of our campaign to
Strengthen The Hunting Act |
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