A pivotal moment in ending fox hunting
The League Against Cruel Sports is at the forefront of calling for stronger laws to end fox hunting and all other barbaric forms of hunting with dogs.
The Hunting Act, which banned fox hunting in 2005, was a milestone in animal protection, but the hunts found ways to get around it and carry on chasing and killing animals as they did before the ban.
Not just foxes, but deer, hares and otters too.
Our public affairs team has for many years been busy lobbying ministers and MPs to grasp the nettle and strengthen the Hunting Act.
It’s now seven years ago that the Labour Party came out in favour of this vital move, but only now it is in government can it implement this change.
And this spring it pledged to hold a consultation to ban ‘trail’ hunting, the discredited excuse used by hunts to get around the ban – they purport to follow a scent trail laid by a person but this is a smokescreen invented to deceive the public, police and courts.
This move, inspired by our lobbying, is a pivotal moment in ending fox hunting for good.
It needs to go further and close the loopholes in the law and introduce jail sentences for those that break it, but it is also a hugely significant moment in ending the persecution of wildlife for ‘sport’.
We are now in talks with government ministers and also focusing our energy on encouraging you and all our other supporters to take part in this consultation.
Take action
Sign up today and pledge to take part in the consultation.
Tackling the cruelty of game bird shooting
Meanwhile our public affairs and campaigns team have been busy working with Compassion in World Farming to encourage more than 100,000 of you to sign a petition calling for an to end the use of cages in farming, including ‘game’ birds’.
This led to a debate in parliament on the issue and ensured that the pheasants and partridges raised for shooting had a voice and were not forgotten.
The League’s intelligence team has also been busy gathering information on the game bird shooting industry to help highlight the scale of the cruelty.
More than 100,000 game birds are kept in cramped cages for breeding purposes so that an astonishing 61 million non-native pheasants and partridges are released into the UK countryside every year – simply to be shot.
The number of game birds being released is simply shocking – their combined weight or biomass even exceeds all the other wild breeding birds to be found in our countryside.
Wildlife flourishing on the League’s reserves
The League manages hundreds of acres of land which provides a sanctuary for animals such as deer which are still being hunted with dogs in the west country.
These reserves also provide vital wildlife habitats for rare species and the League has now teamed up with neighbouring landowners to help reintroduce animals that have been struggling or wiped out.
We now have white storks taking to the skies over Devon, a beautiful animal that hasn’t been seen for hundreds of years.
Six white storks were released into the wild in early June with more joining them in the weeks ahead.
