THE HUNT SABOTEURS REPORT AGAIN ABOUT THE USE OF MOD LAND AND MORE

 Here is the latest news from the HSA.

On Saturday, three fox hunts met on Ministry of Defence land. Hunt saboteurs were in attendance at all three of the meets, in the East Midlands, southern England and in Wales.

In Wales, the Sennybridge Farmers’ Hunt met on the Sennybridge Training Area, north of Llywel. South Wales Hunt Saboteurs were on hand to intervene when they saw three foxes fleeing from the hunt throughout the day. The huntsman encouraged hounds through areas of gorse before they gave chase to one fox, and later in the day masked men acting suspiciously fled when they realised they had been spotted by sabs. All of this was on MOD

In Leicestershire, the Quorn Hunt met at the Defence Animal Training Regiment’s Remount Barracks, with Nottingham Hunt Sabs and Lincoln Hunt Sabs present. This is a military base run jointly by all three armed forces and is used to train horses and dogs. Military horses and riders were out hunting with the Quorn, all at the taxpayers expense.

In December, Ollie Finnigan admitted to illegally hunting whilst huntsman of this hunt. Transcripts evidenced a conspiracy between Finnigan and the Quorn masters to flout the Hunting Act and kill foxes.

In Wiltshire, the Royal Artillery Hunt met at Greenland Camp on the Salisbury Plain Training Area, with Salisbury Plain Hunt Sabs in attendance.

following a Freedom of Information request, which outlined that the Royal Artillery Hunt “lied to Range Control,” “abused the allocations process,” denied others use of the areas and wasted staff time. The email also urged MOD bosses to “meet directly with them rather than us at the front end – who they clearly have no respect for.” And rather damningly stated that “any other unit would be banned for this behaviour.”

WE PREVIOUSLY REPORTED that the Royal Artillery Hunt killed a fox on MOD land at their opening meet in November, and narrowly avoided prosecution for being filmed chasing a fox on MoD land a year prior to this. Despite this and a host of other incidents over recent years, the MOD not only continue to give the hunt licences to use their land, but also revamped their kennels costing the taxpayer £121,000.

Little more than two weeks ago, Secretary of State for Defence, Ben Wallace, nailed his (pro-hunt) colours to the mast and gave an insight into why hunts may continue to get away with this behaviour.

In a bizarre Twitter outburst, he sparred with a journalist reporting on the FOI request and took a swipe at hunt sabs attire while on MOD land, but turned a blind eye to the content of the emails, illegal fox hunting and hunt supporters’ wearing of masks.

The events of this weekend, and the growing list of incidents of illegal hunting, hunt violence, and rule breaking by hunts licensed to operate on MOD land once again raises serious questions about the Government sanctioned use of publicly owned land by these criminal gangs.

And at a time of stretched public finances and heightened threats to national security, it’s scandalous that the MOD is choosing to squander taxpayers money facilitating illegal hunting, which was outlawed nearly 18 years ago.

What can you do?

• Contact your MP and ask them to do everything they can to stop hunts from illegally hunting wildlife on public land: www.writetothem.com

• Ask the MOD’s Defence Infrastructure Organisation why they continue to licence illegal hunting on public land: diosec-parli@mod.gov.uk