Karl Garside, 1966 – 2025

Passionate animal rights campaigner, hunt saboteur and tireless investigator Karl Garside has passed away at the age of 59.

A proud father and grandfather, Karl joined the League Against Cruel Sports earlier this year and was determined to use his investigative expertise, honed over more than 40 years fighting to end animal cruelty, to expose and help stop cruel blood sports.

A fearless crusader, Karl was known as one of Britain’s most impactful campaigners in the world of animal liberation, taking part in direct action at the Grand National aged just 17-years-old.

It was during a raid on an ICI laboratory in 1984 where he met Bev, who he later married and with whom he shared a daughter. Decades of campaigning followed, during which Karl was at the frontline of efforts to stop breeding and importing animals for live laboratory testing, as well as closing down institutions engaged in vivisection.

Karl was perhaps best known as a hunt saboteur, however; first with the Manchester Hunt Saboteurs, with whom he helped co-ordinate against some of the most notorious hunts in the UK, and also working with other groups to launched initiatives like the Cumbria “fell weeks”, where large groups of saboteurs from the North and Midlands would disrupt hunts operating late in the season. These events were physically demanding and required strong coordination, which Karl provided with his characteristic clarity and resolve.

He also played a role in actions against events such as the Altcar hare coursing meet and the Quantock Staghounds. Throughout the 1990s, Karl remained committed to maintaining a strong presence at hunts, responding to violence from the hunts with tenacity and solidarity. Many confrontations at the time were intense and chaotic.

Famously, on the night his daughter was born, Karl used the hospital payphone not to call relatives, but to help coordinate a sab for the following day, testament to his tireless dedication. After relocating from Manchester, he continued working with saboteurs in Aberystwyth, Liverpool, Sheffield, Surrey, and Wales, never ceasing in his activism.

It was, according to Bev, his move into covert investigations where he truly found his calling, using his expertise to expose abuse within the hunting and meat industries.

In 2014, he founded the Hunt Investigation Team (HIT), which rapidly gained a reputation for its professionalism and impact. In 2016, HIT’s footage led to an official investigation into the South Herefordshire Hunt after evidence emerged of fox cubs being thrown to hounds in a kennel yard. As a result of HIT’s investigation, the South Herefordshire Hunt disbanded entirely.

The following year, HIT exposed illegal hunting and wildlife persecution on the Moscar grouse shooting estate, revealing the use of snares and traps targeting protected species.

In 2018 the team revealed that the RSPB had hired a known blood-sports enthusiast to kill wildlife on conservation land, leading to a backlash that forced the organisation to cancel the contract. That same year they captured footage of a badger caught in an illegal snare set by a huntmaster and filmed another badger dying slowly during the Cumbria cull, raising serious concerns about the cruelty of government-sanctioned wildlife management.

Karl also turned the lens on the meat and fur industries. In 2019,footage Karl obtained from a Welsh abattoir showing disturbing abuse of animals triggered a criminal investigation. In 2020 they returned to Moscar and also filmed inside Gressingham Foods' duck slaughterhouse, exposing brutal handling of animals. That year they uncovered the activities of a lone trapper in South Wales who was snaring, killing and skinning foxes to sell their pelts, offering a rare glimpse into the UK’s connection to the global fur trade.

In 2021 and 2022 Karl and HIT carried out a series of high-profile investigations that made national headlines. They filmed hounds being shot dead at the Duke of Beaufort Hunt’s kennels and exposed routine abuse at farms supplying the organic and dairy sectors. One of the most politically sensitive investigations came in 2022 when HIT revealed wildlife crime on the estate of William van Cutsem, a close friend of Prince William. The exposé prompted a police raid and widespread media coverage. Footage Karl helped obtain also contributed to successful prosecutions of fox hunters brought by the League Against Cruel Sports.

Karl was excited to join the League as a full-time investigator, working closely with a team of passionate professionals to expose the continued abuse of and cruelty to animals in the British countryside through sports such as hunting with hounds, commercial game shooting, trapping and snaring, animal fighting and animal racing.

On his last day Karl, true to form, spent his morning collecting ex-battery hens rescued by the Hens Trust for rehoming.

The League extends its sympathies to all who knew Karl and worked side-by-side with him on behalf of animals. We are saddened his time with us was not far, far longer.

• With thanks to Bev Garside and Jim Poulter