Brutal deer hunting – then and now
Posted 19th October 2026
A blog by Mike Nicholas from the League Against Cruel Sports on deer hunting and the brave deeds of an unsung hero.
A chilling blood sport, involving three hunts chasing deer with hounds for miles before shooting the animal, is still tragically taking place in the West Country despite a ban on the activity.
Hunting with dogs was banned in 2005 when the Hunting Act came into force, but the hunts when challenged claim they are using exemptions in this law to justify their cruelty.
One of the exemptions or loopholes is for so-called ‘scientific research’, but the reality is that the hunts have only published one piece of research in the past 20 years and it was entirely implausible.
Another exemption the hunts use is the ‘rescue of a wild mammal’ to relieve it of suffering, but rather than an injured animal, they often choose the fittest, chasing it for miles with their hounds before shooting it.
These weaknesses in the Hunting Act are why the League Against Cruel Sports is calling for stronger hunting laws and the removal of these exemptions from the act.
The largest of the deer hunts is the Devon and Somerset Staghounds which targets deer on Exmoor.
More than 30 years ago, when hunting with dogs was still legal, their cruel activities first grabbed national headlines when a brave monitor filmed the final moments of a stag in the River Barle.
Kevin Hill, who was then a League Against Cruel Sports monitor, described the brutal scenes he filmed that day as he followed the hunt chasing a magnificent 25-stone stag for miles before it sought sanctuary in the river.
“Soon after riders and hunt followers arrived. A shot rang out and instinctively I moved to the banks of this beautiful river with its steep wooded valley. Instantly I came under pressure from riders riding very close to me but I could ‘dodge’ them as the area was wooded. But I could not dodge the followers who did everything to impede my progress to the bank.
“As I approached the river more shots rang out and I expected to find the stag dead. I was wrong. The poor animal was ‘corralled’ in the river with riders upstream and down. Followers on either side prevented the stag from leaving the river. He ran up and down the river with hounds close with an occasional gunshot ringing out. The stag was in real trouble and absolutely terrified. Followers were deliberately trying to block me videoing. And then right in front of me two hunt people were in the water wrestling with the stag and soon joined by a third. No escape now for the stag.
“The lifeless body was dragged to the other side of the river out of my sight most likely to have its throat cut to bleed the once wonderful stag.”
Kevin was then assaulted by a group of hunt supporters who threatened him and kicked him but somehow he hung onto his camera.
He was injured physically but there was also a psychological impact. Kevin said: “The mental stress of witnessing the end of this stag’s life is still with me thirty years on.”
He added, talking about his presence at the end: “At least the stag was not alone in the last minutes of his life.”
The film and photos taken by Kevin that day shocked people across the UK.
Kevin is still active monitoring hunts and is following hunts in his retirement with the North Dorset Hunt Saboteurs.
And only last month, this tragic incident was replicated when another stag was harried across Exmoor by the Devon and Somerset Staghounds – an incident filmed by the North Dorset Hunt Saboteurs – and like so many exhausted hunted stags who overheat after a chase, fled to a river.
The same River Barle. And the same fate for the exhausted stag which was shot with a folding shotgun by a member of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds.
This deplorable cruelty needs to be stopped. We are a nation of animal lovers and can’t let this brutality continue.
When the government makes good on its promise to ban trail hunting, it needs to remove the exemptions in the Hunting Act that the hunts exploit and introduce an effective deterrent to hunting in the form of prison sentences.
The original hunting ban was a landmark moment but the government needs to finish the job and strengthen the law so that hunting deer with dogs is consigned to the history books.
Take action and write to your MP:
https://takeaction.league.org....
1994 footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuzipLShQlk
Mike Nicholas, senior communications officer at the League Against Cruel Sports
A stag on the run from a deer hunt in the West Country in 2026