Some stories are hard to tell - but impossible to ignore. This is one of them.
Thank you for making the time to bravely read this cub’s-eye view of a barbaric practice you can help to end with your gift.
I am the cub
The woods smell of rain and moss and something sweet. Berries. I nose them in the underbrush, tugging leaves aside with my snout. My siblings tumble beside me - fur, paws, and barks, all legs and joy.
Mummy calls me Fern. I think perhaps I’m her favourite...she’s definitely mine. From her patch of sunlight she watches us, her eyes soft, her tail flicking lazily. She lets us play now. She trusts the woods. We’re learning. We’re wild. We are safe.
A beetle scuttles over my paw and I pounce. My brother knocks into me and I tumble into the bracken, squealing, laughing. I don’t know what fear is. Not yet.
But then Mummy freezes.
Her ears go sharp and tall. Her nose twitches. Her body becomes still, like stone.
That stillness - it’s the first thing that unsettles me. Her eyes fix on something far away. I don’t hear it yet, but she does. Her breath shortens.
I move to her side, unsure, suddenly small.
And then I hear it.
Thudding. Voices. Barking - deep, violent barking, not like any I’ve heard before. Not the deer’s warning bark or a squirrel's angry chatter. This is low, wild, hungry.
Something’s wrong. I feel it in my belly.
Mummy growls. It’s not the growl she uses when we nip too hard in play. This is something else. Something final.
“Run!” she cries. Her voice cracks like a branch.
We flinch. Then we scatter.
I sprint into the undergrowth, heart beating so loud it hurts my ears. I look for my siblings. I can’t find them. I can’t hear them. Only the barking. Closer now. Thunderous.
A chorus of rage.
I dive beneath a log. Mud coats my belly. I breathe in moss, try to disappear. I press my body flat, silent. I think I am safe.
Then I hear a scream. High. Short. Guttural.
My sister.
I crawl forward, belly to dirt, shaking. I peer out.
I see them.
They are huge. Dozens of them. Dogs, big, teeth flashing, foam at mouths. They tear through the bracken. Monsters on horseback follow - laughing, yelling, brown-jackets, horns and whips.
I see my brother running. He doesn’t make it.
They catch him. They rip. They pull. His body jerks.
His cry cuts the sky and then stops.
He stops.
I try not to make a sound. I try to become a root, a rock, anything but me. But I’m breathing so fast, too fast. My chest is a drum.
Another sibling - smaller than me - bursts from a bush.
She runs. She doesn’t get far.
The dogs are too fast. They don’t kill clean.
I close my eyes. I press my face into the earth. Maybe it will open and swallow me. Maybe this is a dream.
But I smell blood now. I smell her blood.
I can’t stay.
I bolt.
I don’t know where I’m going. Every step is fire. Thorns rake my belly.
A dog sees me. He howls and the others follow.
They are close. So close. I feel their breath on my tail.
Then pain.
Blinding. Tearing.
I scream. Teeth clamp my leg. I kick, twist, bite. I break free.
I run. Limping. Drenched in blood.
But they are all around.
A weight slams me down. Jaws crush my back. I cry for Mummy. For the den. For the sun on my fur.
Everything is noise. Teeth. Heat. Agony.
Then -
Nothing.
Last year the League received over 172 reports of cub hunting (darker colours indicate higher levels of reported cub hunting based on 2024 data).
Cleary innocent young foxes like Fern still very much need your help.
Donate Now
By making your donation today, you will help to fund the League’s Animal Crimewatch hotline and empower our Intelligence team and field operatives. This donor-funded group of ex-police and ex-military personnel carry out the undercover work required to shine a light on this cruel and secretive practice.
After receiving a tip from the public via Animal Crimewatch, League operatives may be able to travel to the location and position themselves in the early pre-dawn hours before the cub hunters arrive. Donor-funded cameras are covertly installed, and the investigator cautiously conceals themself nearby.
Evidence you help to gather with your generous gift is relayed to police and the media so that perpetrators may face justice. Perhaps even be prosecuted. If not by law, then in the court of public opinion when loopholes and exceptions in the Hunting Act allow these criminals to walk free.
Not only are wild cubs hunted, but some hunts go further - ripping young foxes like gentle and playful Fern from their mothers and throwing them into the kennels as ‘training tools’ for young hounds. This grotesque ritual exists purely to teach the hounds to kill.
Your gift today can help protect future generations of cubs like Fern.
To learn more about how to spot the signs of cub hunting – and what to do if you spot them – click here.