Charity welcomes government consultation to properly ban hunting with hounds

Animal welfare charity the League Against Cruel Sports has welcomed a government consultation, launched today, which will pave the way for tougher laws to finally end hunting with dogs, such as fox hunting, in the English and Welsh countryside.

The League is encouraging the public to take part in the hunting consultation and use it to back the government’s pledge to ban so-called trail hunting, but also to demand new measures to outlaw reckless and ‘accidental’ hunting, to remove loopholes in the existing Hunting Act 2004, and to introduce custodial sentences to act as a deterrent for lawbreaking.

New figures released by the League today to coincide with the consultation show suspected illegal fox hunting is rife. During the last fox and cub hunting seasons, from August 2025 to March 25 this year, the charity recorded 488 reports of foxes seen being pursued, along with 1,220 reports of anti-social behaviour and havoc inflicted on rural communities by fox hunts. Pre-laid trails were recorded being laid at only four per cent of hunt meets attended by monitors.

The consultation will be open for 12 weeks from today and invites respondents not only to give their opinions on trail, drag and clean boot hunting, but also “whether any other legislative changes are needed to ensure that a ban is effective”.

Emma Slawinski, chief executive of the League Against Cruel Sports, said: “This consultation is the very welcome start of a process which should lead to more effective legislation allowing the courts and police to tackle persistent and prolific illegal hunting, something the League has been lobbying many different governments for over many years.

“The time for change is now – 21 years after the original hunting ban came into force, we are now finally on the brink of consigning this old-fashioned blood sport to history

“So-called trail hunting must be banned, the exemptions in the Hunting Act removed, the end of so-called accidental hunting, and jail sentences introduced to act as a deterrent for those who would break new stronger fox hunting laws.”

The charity has public backing. In February 2025, on the twentieth anniversary of the Hunting Act coming into force, the League handed a 104,000-signature petition into Number 10 calling for stronger laws on hunting, followed this year by a 36,000-signature open letter to the government urging it to stand by its promises to do just that.

The League’s fox hunting data was collected from reports into the League’s Animal Crimewatch service, the League’s professional investigators, and other monitor and saboteur groups in the field.

The hunt havoc includes reports of trespass in people’s gardens, attacks on family pets, reports of other wildlife such as deer being chased, hounds running amok on busy roads and causing road traffic accidents or on a railway line – all activities inconsistent with the idea of following a trail, which is what hunts claim to be doing.

However, the League says the figures are just the tip of the iceberg, showing only those hunts being monitored, with hunt behaviour in many remote rural areas and incidents of animals being chased and torn apart going unreported.

Emma added: “For more than 20 years, hunts have carried on breaking the law and ignoring the ban on chasing and killing wild animals with dogs.

“This is a pivotal moment for animal welfare and, as well intentioned as the original ban was, this time around we need to get it right with stronger measures to stop the cruelty and killing.”

· More about how to take part in the consultation, and how people can make their voice heard, is available here: https://www.league.org.uk/hunting_consultation

Ends

Notes to editors

Emma Slawinksi, CEO of the League, is available for interview.

To arrange an interview, or for more information, please contact the League Against Cruel Sports Press Office on 01483 524250 or email pressoffice@league.org.uk

Hunting with dogs was banned in England and Wales when the Hunting Act came into force on February 18, 2005.

Trail hunting, the excuse invented by hunts after the ban in which they claim to follow a pre-laid trail and that any hunting was accidental, has been described by chief superintendent Matt Longman, the national lead on fox hunting crime, as a “smokescreen for illegal fox hunting”. He also described illegal hunting as “prolific”.

The League Against Cruel Sports is Britain's leading charity that works to stop animals being persecuted, abused and killed for sport. The League was instrumental in helping bring about the landmark Hunting Act 2004, the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021, the Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Act 2023 and bans on the use of snares brought about by the Agriculture (Wales) Act 2023, and Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024.

We carry out investigations to expose law-breaking and cruelty to animals and campaign for stronger animal protection laws and penalties. We work to change attitudes and behaviour through education and manage wildlife reserves. Find out more about our work at www.league.org.uk. Registered charity in England and Wales (no.1095234) and Scotland (no.SC045533).