We’ve had a few days where hunts have been failing to go out – three on one day cancelled their meets either due to hard ground or wet ground. This gave us a rest and meant we could be up early to check for blocked setts on the ‘New Year’s Day’ meet (one day late as NYD fell on a Sunday)…
Chipping Campden, North Cotswolds cull zone. Men out on quads this morning at 05.30, freshly blocked setts and a very worried game keeper. The North Cotswold Hunt have just had their New Years Day meet in the centre of Chipping Campden.
Meanwhile the Heythrop have just met at Stow on the Wold, also in the North Cotswold cullzone. Reports to follow…
FULL REPORT:
New Year’s Day meets are big events in the hunting calender and for some packs they are nearly as important as Boxing Day. Local papers in the North Cotswolds always report on the local meets, hundreds, attend and this is what they are supporting. So we have situation whereby just for “sport” badger setts are trashed on an industrial scale so that the hunted fox does not escape down them. We found numerous blocked setts yesturday and judging by what is found and then multiplied by the ground each hunt covers maybe as many as 30 setts get filled in by each hunt on each hunting day. Both meets and all setts blocked are in the North Cotswold badger cull zone and so these badgers are also targeted by a government sponsored cull so potentially 60 setts, maybe more, were systematically vandalised in on one day in a cull zone. With the frost turning clumps of earth to hard unyielding boulders and making it VERY difficult for badgers to dig themselves out these gross acts of cruelty can kill and are not even taken into account by Natural England as a factor in badger population.
Anyway, sett blockers are up early and so are we. The North Cotswold Hunt were due to meet at Chipping Campden and so we were there when they turned up hid from the quad bike and saw the torches going through the woods at one stage coming towards us! The quad was on the move and out by 07.00 after doing their dirty work. Gloucestershire police responded quickly and efficiently. The NCH met in Chipping Campden town centre and were seen hunting in the area later in the day.
The Heythrop met at Stow on the Wold and setts were also checked in that area. Some were not blocked but others, near Upper Swell were. The hunt were around the Slaughters, in and out of the Eyford Park area and finished as it got dark after hunting a fox for miles.
Both hunts are validated by the local media, the town councils and those who turn up to support them. Time to change things.
