THE VERY CRUEL SPORT OF CUB HUNTING

Cub hunting, as the name suggests, is the practice of hunting fox cubs with young foxhounds. 

Contrary to what the hunters say, hunting a live animal does not come naturally to a foxhound. As such, the young hounds must be taught how to hunt in preparation for the main season. This is done by hunting fox cubs in a confined area of woodland, which pushes the fox cubs into the pack, rather than involving a long chase. 

Fox cub hunting remains a dirty secret of the hunting world. Despite the ban on hunting wild mammals with dogs this continues to be widely practiced as part of hunting. 

Cub hunting, as the name suggests, is the practice of hunting fox cubs with young foxhounds. 

How common was cub hunting in the 2021 season?

The hunts were active this season; we have collated 115 reports about cub hunting from this time period. 

While this is 50 per cent fewer reports than we received over the same period last season, it unfortunately does not mean there have been fewer incidents of cub hunting. More likely that repeated lockdowns made proactive research and investigations more difficult than usual. Equally, we don’t duplicate reports collated by other hunt monitoring groups, so there is in fact much more illegal cub hunting going on across the country than these numbers suggest.

Cub hunting as an activity is focused on cruelty to animals. However, this is not the only issue with this ‘sport’. Hunts have been known to engage in antisocial behaviour in the process of chasing down fox cubs. In the 2021 season, we received five reports of hunts trespassing on private land, and five further reports of hunts causing havoc; dogs running loose, the destruction of private property, and other antisocial behaviour in residential areas.