'Saboteurs' disrupt hunts to save foxes' lives

Business Insider

Clashes between fox hunters and animal rights activists can turn violent as "saboteurs" in the UK challenge the traditional pastime.

Transcript

00:00 We are going in Whitehalls Wood now from the south.

00:02 I'm just sending a little update to the chat.

00:05 The reason I do it is because of that corking they do of an innocent animal

00:18 being hunted by a pack of dogs for no good reason until its lungs are literally bursting

00:22 and then they roll it over and they eviscerate it.

00:26 Oh ****

00:27 On channel Huntsman, I've gathered off his house.

00:40 Appears to be heading westerly in the general direction of Great Ratting.

00:44 The general direction of Great Ratting. Over.

00:47 Where's the spray? Where's the spray?

00:49 Back to him!

00:58 Why have they been sent in there if not to hunt?

00:59 This is why it's really difficult when the hunt saboteurs get a hunting horn out and they play

01:04 music because they're trying to take control of those hounds. It's a bit like you're driving a car

01:09 and someone in the passenger seat tries to take your steering wheel. You know it's really

01:13 disrespectful to those hounds. They're supposed to be animal lovers. To take them out of the

01:18 control, out of the safety of the control of the huntsman.

01:46 They want people to believe that trail hunting is a person running through a field with a

01:52 rag with a scent on it that the hounds will then follow and no foxes are harmed. That's

01:58 not what they're doing. It's not what they're doing at all. They are still hunting as normal.

02:03 They're hunting foxes and the law is weak enough that they can still get away with it.

02:08 So

02:17 they go out, they lay trails and it's designed to simulate

02:28 traditional hunting which is why it looks the same but if it was laid several hours before or

02:32 however long ahead the scent can drift so that when the hounds are searching for it and sniffing

02:37 for it and putting their noses down the scent may not have been in the middle of the field

02:41 where it was originally laid. We wanted to keep the tradition. We wanted to keep the

02:50 the breeding of packs of hounds that have been bred for hundreds of years

02:53 and they simulate traditional quarry hunting. Today they are striving to keep alive the

03:01 ceremonial customs that have made the peerage the embodiment of England's aristocratic tradition.

03:05 The chapter draws to a close. It will never be this simple again and everyone knows it.

03:17 [Applause]

03:27 [Music]

03:38 All right.

03:47 [Music]

04:07 Mr Oliver, why did you feed live popcorn to your dogs?

04:11 Did you not realise you were committing an offence?

04:16 [Music]

04:22 A long time the police have been believing them, the public have been believing them

04:25 and it's been, we've had to work very hard to show the powers that be and the public exactly what

04:31 they are doing, that they are still hunting foxes, they are still chasing foxes, they are still

04:35 killing foxes every time these hunts go out unless we hunt with them sometimes and we stop them.

04:40 [Music]

04:47 They had to because you wouldn't leave on your own accord.

04:49 [Music]

05:03 [Music]

05:13 [Music]

05:23 [Music]

05:33 [Music]

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