It was a very busy day yesterday – Saturday 16th December 2017. North Cotswold cull zone, Heythrop and North Cotswold Hunt.

The Heythrop and the North Cotswold Hunt very often meet very close to one another which usually means sett blocking on an industrial scale. Some very weary sabs were in the field at 5.30 to keep an eye on known vulnerable setts after sabbing the Ledbury the day before. It was very cold, the snow still lay thick and the sabs were hoping for a cancellation. With no sounds of quads and no signs of blocking an early finish began to look promising but at a very well earned breakfast news of horse boxes rolling up all over the place for both Slatepits (NCH) and Donnington (Heythrop) came in. At least they met an hour late to wait for the ground to thaw a tiny bit but even we were struggling to stay upright on foot.

Sabs checked one more sett to find that it like all the others had been blocked recently and that the badgers had dug their own way out. Off it was to the Heythrop who hunted a fox from Donnington over the A424, hounds were running amongst the traffic. Fortunately a foot follower seemed to avert disaster by getting them off the road and back to Merryman’s Brake.

Then things all got a bit surreal…hounds hunted from Swell Wold and were heading fast to another very busy road the B4077. We managed to slow them down first by lifting their heads and then by rating them but over the road they went at speed into a large piece of land. With Master and huntsman Charlie Frampton (who had changed into a black coat) galloped on a very icy road to catch up. As we drove around to Springhill the North Cotswold were hunting a fox across into the same large piece of land. We stopped the pack but the huntsman Nigel Peel took them on to hunt south as the Heythrop hunted north.

They have been known to crash into one another, don’t think it happened on this day, but it was close. What happens to the poor foxes running from one pack and then into another does not bear thinking about.

NB the Heythrop claim to be trail hunting. Now the correct etiquette for hunt country boundaries was always that it was ok to continue to hunt a fox that was found in one hunt country into another, but a faux pas of massive proportions to pop over the border and go looking for one. So… why would they lay a trail over a main road into another hunt country which was being hunted by them at exactly the same time???

Our day was far from over when they tried packing up (at least one horse box was stuck in the snow). More sett checking and none found blocked by either hunt.