Thousands call on the government to stand by its promises to ban trail hunting

Open letter handed to Number 10 as hundreds of bloody foxes appear in central London

A huge pile of bloody foxes appeared in central London yesterday [Tuesday] to highlight the scale of illegal hunting in England and Wales that has continued since the government took power.

National animal welfare charity the League Against Cruel Sports was behind the stunt, which saw a “hunter” dump 648 foxes in Trafalgar Square – one for each report the charity has received of a fox being chased by hunts since the summer of 2024.

Meanwhile, animal welfare campaigners from the League-led Time for Change Coalition Against Hunting handed in an open letter signed by more than 36,000 people in just one month to Sir Keir Starmer at 10 Downing Street.

The letter, which calls on his government to keep its promise to properly ban hunting wild animals with dogs, comes a year after a 104,000-signature petition calling for stronger hunting laws was handed in to Number 10 on the twentieth anniversary of the Hunting Act coming into force.

Emma Slawinski, League Against Cruel Sports chief executive, said: “The government isn’t keeping its promises, and the dumped bloodied foxes are there to show the scale of illegality that the government is failing to get to grips with.

“The public is repulsed by trail hunting, which is just a smokescreen for foxes and other wild animals still being chased and torn apart by hunt hounds, so we are urging the government to act immediately to end this savage blood sport once and for all.”

The government pledged to ban so-called trail hunting in its manifesto, and further promised to launch a public consultation “in the new year” when it launched its animal welfare strategy before Christmas.

This has not happened.

Emma said: “The time for change is now and the government must urgently launch its consultation, which should also include the removal of the exemptions in the Hunting Act that hunts exploit to get around the current weak law, the introduction of custodial sentences, and the outlawing of reckless, or ‘accidental’ hunting.”

Polling commissioned by the League Against Cruel Sports and carried out independently by FindOutNow with further analysis by Electoral Calculus in March/April 2024 found that 76 per cent of the public supported stronger fox hunting laws, with only seven per cent disagreeing.

A clear majority of voters in rural as well as urban areas backed new laws to stop foxes being chased by hounds and killed, with 70 per cent of people in the countryside supporting the proposal.

· 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

For information or interview requests, please contact the League Against Cruel Sports Press Office on 01483 524250 or email pressoffice@league.org.uk

Photo one – Fake foxes covered in blood with League ‘hunter’ on the streets of London outside the National Gallery.

Photo two – Fake foxes covered in blood with League ‘hunter’ on the streets of London outside the National Gallery.

Photo three – Fake foxes covered in blood with League ‘hunter’ on the streets of London outside the National Gallery.

Photo four – Fake foxes covered in blood with League ‘hunter’ on the streets of London outside the National Gallery.

Photo five – Fake foxes covered in blood with League ‘hunter’ on the streets of London outside the National Gallery.

Photo six –Emma Slawinski, chief executive, League Against Cruel Sports, outside 10 Downing Street handing in the open letter.

Photo seven – Left to right outside 10 Downing Street: Arthur Thomas, public affairs advisor, Four Paws UK; Lisa Manning, policy officer, Wildlife and Countryside Link; Emma Slawinski, chief executive, League Against Cruel Sports; Pip Donovan, co-founder, Action Against Foxhunting; Mark Jones, head of policy, Born Free.

Trail hunting has been described by chief superintendent Matt Longman, the national police lead on fox hunting crime, as a “smokescreen for illegal fox hunting”. He also described illegal hunting as “prolific”.

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

The full set of data for the 2024/2025 fox hunting seasons is available on request. The figures are compiled from reports to the charity’s confidential Animal Crimewatch serviceand from hunt monitor and hunt saboteur online reports analysed by the League’s intelligence team, which is staffed by former police officers and civilian analysts. The figures are believed to be just the tip of the iceberg showing only those hunts being monitored.

Find Out Now interviewed 5,379 GB adults online from 26 March - 2 April 2024. Data were weighted to be demographically representative of all GB adults by gender, age, social grade, other demographics and past voting patterns.

Find Out Now and Electoral Calculus are both members of the British Polling Council and abide by its rules.

A full breakdown of the data is available here: https://electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/DataTables_LACS_Jun2024.xlsx

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).