Today a few 3C sabs attended a Ledbury Hunt meet in Castlemorton NR Malvern with Bristol Hunt Saboteurs. The hunt were good at avoiding us for most of the day disappearing into pieces of land but the hounds were quiet on the most part so weren’t finding foxes.

The main event of the day was Bristol Hunt Saboteurs being assaulted in a field near a badger sett by Ledbury Hunt terriermen. Bristol Hunt Saboteurs left the area to follow the hounds and avoid further violence. A short while later two 3C sabs revisited the area of the assault and found the four terriermen digging out at the badger sett, The terriermen were quite threatening and aggressive to the sab closest to them who was taking their photos. After ‘antis’ turning up twice, terriermen left on their quad.

The two 3C sabs went up to the sett and found blocked holes, a filled in dig out hole, hound prints and hand prints in the mud. We do not believe the terriermen were able to complete their dig out. The police and Malvern Hills Conservators were in the area monitoring the hunts activities but the dig out was off the common on private land.

While this happened in Worcestershire other 3C sabs were assaulted in the Cotswolds, Gloucestershire resulting in a trip to A&E, but that’s another story…

A facebook page called ‘Fox Hunt off Malvern Hills‘ has been set up in order to condense information on the huntwhen they hunt on Castlemorton Common and into the Malvern Hills, partially to make the Malvern Hills Conservators more aware of what the hunt are doing on and near the land they manage.

They do a separate report on what happened in the hills and on the common throughout the day. Bristol Hunt Saboteurs also got their incident covered by the media and have released a video…

Please check it out if you’re on facebook!

Stop Badger-sett Blocking

Hethrop, chipping Norton. 4 blocked badger setts so far. Hunt have gone shitty pants and changed their plans but called us to say that they know where we are…. They don’t

UPDATE:

5 years ago the Heythrop killed a fox near Sarsgrove wood and it was filmed by hunt monitors becoming evidence in the case where they were forced to plead guilty as a corporate body to multiple charges of illegal hunting. You would have thought that they would have learned something but alas,same old same old. Anyway one sab was on a bike and another was up early sett checking.

It was expected that the Heythrop would come into the area but with it approaching 15.00, 5 badger setts having been found to be blocked and phone calls from the hunt asking where we all were it was assumed that they had decided not to take the risk of anything happening in front of cameras. It was only then that hounds were heard in full cry at Sarsden House and a fox ran past this admin only to be holloaed at by a woman (holloaing is a high pitched scream used to call hounds onto the hunted fox). The elusive Charlie Frampton emerged and did make a token effort (not a very good one BAD Charlie) to stop hounds, this pack can stop on a pin if they are told to do so. He then packed up by 15.30, unheard of for this hunt.

Anyway, 4 slashed tyres on return to the car. Police and RSPCA fully briefed on setts. The setts were made safe for badgers and foxes. Of course the Heythrop denied all knowledge so presumably the badgers are digging themselves in with spades now on every hunting morning after dining on hedgehogs and bees, in between plotting celebrity deaths…?

Lots of action with the Cotswold Vale Farmers’ Hunt this Christmas along with our Welsh Borders mate. On Christmas Eve we attended their meet in Sandhurst and, despite some trouble from some locals (who were also annoying the hunt when they weren’t offering to sell them bagged foxes) we caught them hunting, in full cry, and spotted the ‘lovely’ Ben Hughes checking out a barn full of hay bales where the fox had sought shelter, fellow terrier man Nick Hodges getting spotted by sabs when he tried to sneakily point out where the fox had run to Mike ‘Pervy’ Smith.

They headed up into the hills and we kept an eye on them the best we could, helping one fox by spraying his line when he ran close by. The wind played havoc with the scent at a couple of points which also helped. We had the usual ‘hounds on roads’ situation. No surprise there! Simon is learning to be more assertive and when one sab made a sarcastic remark about his riding style, Simon replied with an insult which included the C-word. We’re feeling very proud of him…!

Today the hunt were hosted by The George Hotel in Newent. It was a day of bad luck and good calls. Sabs decided not to hold a demo but prioritised pre-spraying areas we thought they might go to (good call as we guessed right). The vehicle broke down (bad luck). But that’s what legs are good for! We had already split up (good call) which meant that someone always knew their location. Then a foot sab lost her phone (bad luck) and whilst finding it the hunt had turned towards her and she spotted terrier men and another quad heading in front of the hunt. With other foot sabs heading her way and keeping tabs on the hunt, she went to find the quads (good call) and found Ben Hufhes , Nick Hodges and friends at an active badger sett (which was heavily targeted during the cull).

With hounds in full cry other sabs stuck with the hunt (good call) and ended up helping the 3 o’clock fox escape. Many thanks to those who were dotted around the countryside nearby checking setts and ‘walking dogs’ as well as those mingling at the meet.

Off home to eat Christmas leftovers and chocolate and wait for the sab who dropped by the Heythrop today, found several blocked setts, had all her car tyres slashed and helped a fox escape whilst her stalkers were still searching for her.

We can’t guarantee a no-kill day (we rarely do) but it wasn’t a bad’un. Lovely to chat to some people at the meet too and to hear comments from people in town like ‘sometimes they lay trails, but they still go after foxes’ and ‘I like seeing the horses and dogs but did you know the still stop up the earths? So they’re still hunting foxes so I stopped supporting them’.

CVFH, Morse’s Farm Tibberton. We were joined by Bristol, South Wales and Bath sabs. Sett checkers were also inland first thing with a thorough knowledge of the area. First off was Jamie Griffith’s land (some of you may remember him as a leading pro cull farmer) and shortly they had hunted a fox to the golf course near Huntley upsetting a sheep farmer in the process. Clearly they were not meant to be there….what has Simon scatterpack done now, we asked ourselves. Then lo and behold out comes Mark Meladay (huntsman of the Ledbury) carrying the horn. Clearly Simon is still recovering from last week’s tumble and Mark is enjoying some extra hunting. And so the CVFH field was considerably bigger with Ledbury supporters all over the place including their terriermen. Not sure if the CVFH knew what hit them but some Ross Harriers support were out too. The lanes around Tibberton became unusually busy as the day wore on.

Sabs kept an eye on them all day moving them on forming pincer movements. At one point a fox came away from where the terriermen were and to say that they looked decidedly shifty is an understatement. The line of this fox and one that passed earlier was liberally sprayed with citronella. The terriermen and other supporters from various hunts went off fairly quickly once they noted sabs. especially the idiot who tried to holloa.

They finished in Highnam woods an RSPB nature reserve. At this time Mark’s son and his friend decided it would be fun to throw a firecracker into a beehive so 2 sabs got stung. Cruel to the bees and this could have been very serious if anyone had been allergic to bee stings.

We received no less than 5 calls regarding 5 different regarding hunts in the three counties whilst we were out. Some of these were duly attended by local anti hunt folk. Please keep the information coming in. Last week we received news that hounds were on road A44 at Whitbourne Worcestershire last Saturday lunchtime and that one had been hit. We cannot always respond but will carry on recording and passing on to other groups when possible.

After reading our report from the day, a supporter of ours contacted the RSPB about the hunt being on their land and received this reply:

Dear Charles,

Hannah Booth
Site Manager

We weren’t going to name Mark Meladay’s son, Sam, as being one of the two culprits regarding the bee hive damage, but he obviously felt the need to draw attention to himself and name himself by posting a highly amusing comment on our facebook report… and then, when we failed to respond to him, he ‘liked’ his own comment…