STOWE BEAGLES - THEY MUST BE ON THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM AT PRIVATE SCHOOL

View this email in your browser Hi, Supporter Sick Private School Hunt Guilty of Killing Hare The huntsman of a boarding school beagle pack pleaded guilty to illegal hunting last week, after shocking drone footage caught them killing a hare and then congratulating each other. Philip Kennedy shakes hands to congratulate another hunt member - believed to be a school boy - as they stand over the scene of the kill Phillip Kennedy, 48, kennel huntsman of the Stowe Beagles - the hunt of the prestigious Buckinghamshire private school of the same name - pleaded guilty to the illegal hunting of a wild mammal with dogs contrary to the Hunting Act 2005 at Northampton Magistrates Court on Thursday 4th June. Drone footage of the incident shows a hare being chased by the pack across a field, as hunt members watch on, before the hare is caught and killed by beagles on a fence line. The hare is pursued across a field by the pack of beagles before being caught and killed on a fence line. Hunt members can be seen watching the chase from the field side Within moments of the kill, three hunt members - some believed to be schoolboys - reach the scene and immediately shake hands to congratulate each other. Shortly afterwards, more hunt members arrive and the celebrations are repeated as the pack of beagles ‘break up’ the killed hare. The incident happened on land belonging to Crockwell Farm, a wedding venue and B&B near Eydon in Northamptonshire, on 13th November 2025 after the hunt met there. Philip Kennedy and other hunt members again congratulate each other with celebratory hand shakes as the pack pull apart the killed hare Kennedy, listed on the Stowe School’s website with the ‘Stowe Beagles’ position in the ‘Games Department,’ was fined a pathetic £258, with a victim surcharge of £103 and CPS costs of £585. Stowe is one of a number of exclusive schools and colleges that has its own pack of beagles, offering hunting as part of their extra curricular activities. Students take on active positions in the hunt such as hunting hounds, whipping-in or taking positions on the hunt mastership. A Hunt Saboteurs Association spokesperson said, “Once again, we have another court case and more footage shining a light on the illegal activities of hunts today, this time a hare killing beagle pack." “The sick celebrations of these hunters lay bare their intent. But what makes this case even more shocking is the fact that school children were not only present and participating, but that the illegal activity was organised and facilitated by their school!” “This isn’t just an illegal hunting and animal cruelty issue - it’s a safeguarding issue.” “We need to see urgent action by the Government, bringing forward a real ban on hunting with hounds, and for school hunts such as the Stowe Beagles to be shut down with immediate effect.” Over the last twenty years, the hunters have proved themselves to be absolutely determined to carry on hunting. To stop them we need a ban on trail hunting - together with our other recommendations - to produce a watertight ban that even the extremist hunters cannot overcome. You can complete the trail hunting consultation here Complete the Trail Hunting Consultation Join the Hunt Saboteurs Association! Support our vital work by becoming a member. Join The HSA Spread the word! Please share our news Share via email Facebook icon Instagram icon Twitter icon Logo Copyright (C) 2026 Hunt Saboteurs Association. All rights reserved. You were subscribed to the newsletter from Hunt Saboteurs Association. Our mailing address is: BM HSA, London, WC1N 3XX, U.K. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe

THE SHOOTING INDUSTRY DOES NOT WANT US TO KNOW ABOUT THIS - BEAK GUARDS ARE NOT NATURAL

Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more The shooting industry doesn't want you to see this PROTECT THE WILD JUN 9 READ IN APP Many of our readers have been in touch to ask about the strange plastic devices visible on the beaks of birds in some of the images we’ve used with previous articles. Many of us won’t have seen these things before, but what you are seeing are called beak guards — or “bits” — and in the next few articles we will explain why they are used and how they are fitted. We think you will be shocked. We were. Beak guards, also known as “bits,” are small plastic devices clipped through a bird’s nostrils to prevent the beak from closing fully. Plastic spectacles - rigid plastic blinders fitted over a male pheasant’s eyes to block his forward vision - are sometimes used alongside them: if they cannot see another pheasant directly in front of them, the thinking of the farm operator goes, they are significantly less likely to attack or chase each other. Become a Game Changer Become a Game Changer Neither the poultry nor the shooting industry promotes these devices as standard husbandry. Quite the opposite. Industry guidance is explicit: beak guards and bits are temporary management aids, to be used only as a last resort when all other interventions have failed. In fact, guidance makes clear that they should never be the default response to aggression. Environmental changes - more space, improved lighting, better enrichment, reduced stocking density - must be attempted first. This is the exact quote from the government’s ‘Code of practice for the welfare of gamebirds reared for sporting purposes’ (the highlighting is ours): 5.1 The use of management devices or practices that do not allow birds to fully express their range of normal behaviours should not be considered as routine and keepers should work towards the ideal of management systems that do not require these devices. Such devices and practices include mutilations such as beak trimming, procedures to prevent or limit flight such as brailing (placing a band on a wing to prevent extension of the wing), trimming of non-sensitive flight feathers and the use of bits, spectacles and hoods to prevent feather pecking, egg eating or aggression. “Should not be considered as routine.” Heart of England, the pheasant and partridge breeding farm where an undercover investigator worked for a month, did not treat bits as a last resort. Our investigators found that fitting them WAS entirely routine. At Heart of England, bird after bird was fitted with a plastic beak guard. Not some birds. Not birds showing extreme aggression. Almost all of them. Even sick birds. Even hen pheasants nearly blind with Mycoplasma. Can you imagine the suffering of the birds in the images below? The ‘life’ these poor birds were ‘living’. No, we can’t either… Become a Game Changer Regardless of whether individual animals had shown any aggressive behaviour at all, they were fitted with guards. This is not a welfare intervention. This is a production system that has accepted - and planned for - a level of animal suffering so routine that mutilating every bird’s face has simply become part of the process. It also tells us that the people running this farm knew, or should have known, that their conditions were causing birds to attack one another. Aggression, feather pecking, even cannibalism - the behaviours that bits are designed to suppress - do not emerge in well-managed, low-stress environments. They are the product of confinement, overcrowding, boredom and fear. These are stress responses. They are what happens when social animals with strong instincts to roam, forage, dustbathe and escape are denied all of those things. When ‘enrichment’ is a wooden board, and birds are stacked on top of each other in ‘colony cages’. It tells you everything you need to know about what life is like inside facilities like these - and why birds like pheasants have no place in a cage. Rather than address those root causes, Heart of England reached for the plastic clip. It is a revealing choice. The farm’s answer to the problem of birds living in conditions that drive them to harm one another was not to change the conditions. It was to change the birds. To physically prevent them from acting on impulses that their environment was producing in the first place. This is the logic of the factory farm. When animals behave like animals, don’t fix the system: fix the animal. How typical of an industry that complacently congratulates itself on its ‘welfare standards’ while cramming birds in bare cages for months then selling them to shoots for hobbyists to blow out of the air. The implications go far beyond one farm, though. Pheasants are not domesticated animals. They are legally classified as wild birds in the UK, and the industry that breeds them commercially trades heavily on that identity. These are “wild” birds, we are told, released to live freely and naturally. But the image of the wild pheasant sits in sharp contradiction with the reality of a shed full of birds with plastic clips on their faces, unable to peck, unable to behave normally, trapped in conditions so inadequate that without physical restraint they would tear each other apart. There is no humane version of this system. The need for universal bitting is not a management failure at Heart of England specifically - it is proof of a structural impossibility. Pheasants are wild birds. Cage them in large numbers, deny them the space and stimulation their nature demands, and conflict is not a risk to be managed. It is a certainty. The bit is not the solution to that problem. It is the admission that the problem cannot be solved. In our next article, we will show you what the fitting of these devices actually looks like. Birds grabbed, held upside down in ‘bunches’, carried to a table or upturned crates full of scared pheasants, and pinned down while a plastic clip is forced through their nostrils. You can see the terror in their eyes. The footage is difficult to watch. You may want to look away. We are asking you not to. We are asking you to stay with it, to witness what these birds - and millions like them in breeding farms across the country - endured every single day without choice, without relief, and without anyone to speak for them - until now. The birds couldn’t turn away. Neither should we. Images and video recorded by our undercover investigator at Heart of England in 2025. We are working to END BIRD SHOOTING. This suffering has to stop. Please share this article. Share our socials. Follow us for updates. End Bird Shooting Over the coming months our campaign will look at the shooting industry at every level. We will highlight the suppliers — the farms, hatcheries, importers and breeders producing tens of millions of birds under conditions that would provoke public outcry if applied to any other animal. We will expose the providers — the estates and syndicates that take those factory-farmed birds and sell the experience of killing them as leisure. And we will look at the clients — the paying guns who are fully aware of the wildlife crime, the trapping of native predators, and the mass suffering involved, and who have decided that none of it is reason enough to stay away. This industry survives because suppliers supply, providers provide, and clients pay. We intend to examine them all. We are working to END BIRD SHOOTING. This suffering has to stop. Please share this article. Share our socials. Follow us for updates. Join the movement. Become a Game Changer. We are at the beginning of something. Months of undercover work. Hundreds of hours of footage. Farms across the UK exposed. And we are only just getting started. But investigations alone do not end industries. People do. We are asking you to become a Game Changer. To stand with us as we take this fight forward, week by week, piece by piece, until the public, the media and the politicians can no longer look away. The first 500 people to sign up will receive a limited edition pin badge. This is the beginning. Be part of it. Become a Game Changer SHARE LIKE COMMENT RESTACK © 2026 Protect the Wild Protect the Wild, 71-75 Shelton Street Covent Garden, London, W2CH 9JQ Unsubscribe Start writing

THIS IS THE LAST CHANCE FOR CONSULTATION TO BAN TRAIL HUNTING SAY PROTECT THE WILD

Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more This is your LAST CHANCE to fill in the consultation to ban trail hunting ELIZA EGRET JUN 17 READ IN APP The government’s public consultation on plans to ban trail hunting closes tomorrow! This is a rare opportunity to push for real change: not tweaks, not loopholes, but a clear, enforceable ban on hunting with hounds. We’ve reviewed the consultation in detail and set out how we recommend supporters respond. Click on the button below and send your personal response directly to Defra in under 30 seconds. Respond to Defra Trail hunting is a practice widely used as a cover for illegal fox hunting and the killing of other mammals. It’s been more than two decades since the Hunting Act came into force, and the majority of hunts have largely ignored the law, continuing to hunt wildlife as before. On the rare occasions police have investigated, hunts have claimed to be following a pre-laid scent trail, known as trail hunting, and that any kills were purely accidental. Labour has promised to finally close the loopholes that allow trail hunting to mask as a legal sport. This is the party’s chance to consign the hunting of wildlife to the history books. The hunting lobby will undoubtedly be doing everything in its power to influence Labour and carve out loopholes, allowing them to terrorise and kill wildlife with impunity. So we need to make our voices loudly heard for the animals that can't speak for themselves. Fill in the government consultation now. Every response counts. Respond to Defra SHARE LIKE COMMENT RESTACK © 2026 Protect the Wild Protect the Wild, 71-75 Shelton Street Covent Garden, London, W2CH 9JQ Unsubscribe Start writing

FROM PROTECT THE WILD - STOP BIRD SHOOTING - BUY THEIR BADGES

Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more Support the fight to end bird shooting! PROTECT THE WILD JUN 14 READ IN APP We’re so excited to release these limited-edition End Bird Shooting pin badges, designed by the brilliant Ben Sinclair from Fire Lily Studio. Every badge helps fund our campaign to expose and end the bird shooting industry. If you’ve been following our recent investigations and articles, you’ll know we’re only just getting started. Buy a Pin Badge We’re building something much bigger: more investigations, more exposés, more people speaking out, and a growing movement determined to end the mass breeding and killing of birds for sport. There are only 500 badges available and when they’re gone, they’re gone. Get yours, wear it proudly, and help us build the movement. SHARE LIKE COMMENT RESTACK © 2026 Protect the Wild Protect the Wild, 71-75 Shelton Street Covent Garden, London, W2CH 9JQ Unsubscribe Start writing

FROM BIRDLIFE INTERNATIONAL

View email in browser Hi John, Some of the most important work we do is also the hardest to see. It happens in meeting rooms with diplomatic conversations, shared evidence, and years of persistence. For birds that see no borders as they cross continents and oceans, this matters because no single country can protect them alone. It is thanks to supporters like you, that I can write to say migratory birds are now better protected than they were even just months ago. In March 2026, governments from around the world met in Brazil for CMS COP15, a UN global summit focused entirely on migratory species. With strong leadership and expertise from my colleagues and our Partners, the meeting delivered major, concrete breakthroughs – securing protections for birds like the Snowy Owl, Steppe Eagle, Flesh-footed Shearwater, and the Antipodean Albatross. Some of the inspiring people behind these breakthroughs are photographed above, but positive change doesn’t happen overnight. They are the result of years of collaboration, and only possible because of our global community of supporters. The challenge is enormous, but we can meet it by taking conservation action on a global scale, thanks to your support. Warmest wishes, Mairianne Walker | BirdLife International Supporter Team P.S You can support work like this by giving today and having your donation matched up to $20,000 thanks to a generous donor. Instagram Facebook YouTube Website You are receiving this email because you opted-in to hear from BirdLife International BirdLife International is a registered charity 1042125 Address: BirdLife International The David Attenborough Building Pembroke Street Cambridge CB2 3QZ UK For full details on how we collect, use and store your personal information see our Privacy Policy. update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list. Copyright © 2026, All rights reserved.

SUPPORT RIGHT TO ROAM BY BUYING NICK HAYES ART WORK — YOU CAN WEAR IT

THE RIGHT TO ROAM PRINT SHOP IS LIVE Purchase exclusive campaign artwork to help keep us going Dear Roamers, One of the most common questions the Right to Roam campaign gets, other than ‘How would you like it if I camped in your garden?!’, is… WHO does your art and WHERE can I buy it. The answers: 1) Nick Hayes 2) nowhere Until now! Because we’re excited to share that the Right to Roam print shop has launched. Each print run will be based on a different campaign theme and for now will be on a limited release basis, so don't miss the opportunity to add one to your collection while they're available. Some runs will include Nick’s existing artwork, some will be exclusively created for the release, with profits all supporting the campaign for a right to roam. Our first release is the Wild Service: featured prints collection. A limited pre-order series of five prints created by Nick for our book WILD SERVICE: Why Nature Needs You. You have until the 13th of July to place your orders. THE COLLECTION Each piece was originally created by artist, illustrator, and campaign co-founder Nick Hayes, designed to accompany chapters from Wild Service exploring our relationship and responsibility to the natural world. The five prints you voted as your favourites represent Culture, Recommoning, Inheritance, Reciprocity and Homage. All A3 designs are printed on Perlino Cotton, a premium 250gsm fine art paper. each piece is designed to last and made to be treasured. Prints are £35, with all proceeds going directly towards supporting our campaign. view the full collection We created this collection to bring the ideas behind Wild Service into everyday life, something to live with and hang on your wall as a quiet reminder of what we are trying to protect – and why it matters. A way for these ideas not just to sit on a page but spill out into our daily lives. This is the first print collection we’ve ever released, and the beginning of a wider series supporting the work of the campaign. EXCLUSIVE NEWSLETTER DISCOUNT Get 10% off all art prints with the Code: WILDPRINTS10 HOW THIS HELPS THE CAMPAIGN Every print helps fund the ongoing work of our campaign supporting better access to nature and a deeper connection to the land we share. For those who want to support the work more directly, you can become a monthly paid subscriber of the campaign by signing up at righttoroam.org.uk At the moment, the right to roam campaign is being kept afloat by small donations from a few hundred monthly supporters. We are grateful for every single one of you. It’s what keeps the work going, but if we want to scale what’s needed, we need to grow that base. We currently have a target of 1,000 subscribers in order to make the campaign sustainable for the next year. Can you help? More support means more capacity: more campaigning, more organising, and more ability to push for real change in a year which might be our best chance for a generation to win reform. £5 / Month £10 / Month £15 / Month £20 / Month As an extra bonus for supporters, those who choose to become monthly paid supporters of the campaign will automatically enter into our ongoing art print giveaway as a thank you for helping sustain the movement long term. We hope you like the shop. It’s a first for us and we’re experimenting with what works, so if you have any feedback, do reply to this email or get in touch at hello@righttoroam.org.uk Jess, On behalf of the Right to Roam team Visit our social accounts Check out our site This email was sent from this site. If you no longer wish to receive this email, change your email preferences here.

FROM WILD JUSTICE — THE CONSULTATION ON TRAIL HUNTING ENDS VERY SOON

Good morning, Today’s newsletter includes an update on our judicial review on Natural England’s decision to licence supplementary Badger culls in 2024, an update on a development threatening the largest colony of Great Crested Newts in London and Wild Justice featuring on Radio 4. We’d also like to remind you that the consultation on banning trail hunting closes tomorrow – details below. Please do respond, if you haven’t already. Holding Natural England accountable – the Badger cull licence judicial review: Yesterday we attended the Royal Courts of Justice in London for the conclusion of our judicial review which we started back in 2024 with our friends the Badger Trust. We argued that Natural England acted unlawfully by approving 26 supplementary licences to cull Badgers despite advice from its own Director of Science, who concluded that there was “...no justification for authorising further supplementary Badger culls in 2024 for the purpose of preventing the spread of disease and recommend[ed] against doing so”. You can read more about the background of Badger culling, and our stance on it, on our website here. Mr Justice Fordham presided over our case yesterday, and has reserved judgement, which we’ll hear in due course. As soon as we do, we’ll share that with you. We would like to thank our brilliant legal team who helped get this case to court. Thank you Ricky Gama, Carol Day, Julia Eriksen and Madeeha Akhtar at Leigh Day, David Wolfe KC at Matrix Chambers and Barney McCay at Landmark Chambers. We’re extremely fortunate to have such exceptional and committed environmental lawyers representing our cases and helping us challenge these injustices. Thank you so much to all of you who supported our crowdfunder on this case, which allowed us to take this right through to a court hearing. It’s been nearly two years since this case began. Since then, the political landscape has changed but the risk to Badgers has not, and so it’s important that political decisions continue to be scrutinised. Hurry! The clock is ticking on the consultation on so-called trail hunting: The government consultation on how best to implement a trail hunting ban in England and Wales comes to a close on Thursday at 11.59PM on 18 June. If you haven’t managed to respond yet, we’d be really grateful if you could. The League Against Cruel Sports has produced some helpful guidance, which can help guide you through the whole process. You can find it by clicking here. If you’ve already responded – thank you! Trail hunting was introduced as a supposed legal alternative to Fox hunting after Fox hunting was banned in 2004 under the Hunting Act. In trail hunting, hounds are meant to follow an artificial scent trail which has been laid by a human, rather than pursuing a live animal. However, many animal welfare organisations, including the Hunt Saboteurs Association and others, have gathered substantial evidence showing that for years trail hunting has been used by many as a smokescreen to illegally hunt Foxes. This consultation is an opportunity to strengthen legislation around Hunting and put a stop to these wildlife crimes. Save our Newts campaign update: Last month we asked you to support the ‘Save the Newts’ campaign to protect London’s largest breeding colony of Great Crested Newts at Glebelands Nature Reserve which was under threat from development. If you managed to sign the petition before the deadline, thank you. The application was considered by the Mayor of London on 27 May. Despite strong public support from local residents, conservation organisations and supporters, and a petition of over 7,000 signatures, the Greater London Authority chose to approve the Great North Leisure Park development. This case is a stark example of the weakening of wildlife protection legislation and has wider implications for nature conservation in the UK. The new Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 means that real habitat protection can be replaced with a ‘cash-to-trash’ levy for developers., With housing pressures rising, putting important habitats and species of high conservation concern at greater risk, the approval of this development sets a dangerous precedent. Online Talk: Talking Raptor Persecution with Dr Ruth Tingay: In a talk given to Yorkshire-based charity, Friends of the Dales, Wild Justice Co-Director Ruth Tingay gave an insight into raptor persecution and the impact that these crimes have had on Scottish legislation The Friends of the Dales is an independent campaign charity dedicated to protecting the landscape, biodiversity and cultural heritage of the Yorkshire Dales. In recent years it’s focused much of its efforts on challenging issues that face the area, including shining a light on raptor persecution with their ‘Eyes on the Skies’ campaign to raise awareness about birds of prey and their persecution and to seek change from government to put a stop to these crimes. The group is running a petition to help stop the criminal killing of Birds of Prey, which you can sign here. You can watch Ruth’s talk, ‘How Illegal Raptor Persecution led to Grouse Moor Licensing in Scotland’, by following this link. Wild Justice on Radio 4: And last but not least, this morning Wild Justice Co-Director Chris Packham was featured on BBC Radio 4’s Farming Today, talking about the impact Pheasant shooting has on wildlife and the environment. Listen to it, at about 4 minutes and 15 seconds in, here. As ever, thank you for all your support! Wild Justice (CEO: Bob Elliot. Directors: Chris Packham and Ruth Tingay). This is the 269th Wild Justice newsletter. This email was sent to you because you subscribed to it through the Wild Justice website or through an e-action or a petition where you ticked a box. Thank you. We will only use your personal details to send you the Wild Justice newsletter. We will not give or sell your details to anyone else. You can unsubscribe at any time: there is an unsubscribe button at the foot of this email or you can reply to this email and ask us to remove you from the list (the former will happen immediately, the latter might take a few days). 124, City Road London Greater London EC1V 2NX UNITED KINGDOM Unsubscribe | Change Subscriber Options