*** Terriermen caught with terrier at badger sett ***
Following Wednesday’s assaults on two sabs (one from our group, one from Bristol Sabs) whilst the North Cotswold Hunt hounds killed a fox, our good friends from Bristol Hunt Saboteurs and Bath Hunt Saboteurs came up to sab the hunt in a show of solidarity. We had eyes on the hunt in the morning as we only had vague information as to where they may meet and we also had sabs out checking on badger setts around the meet and the meet of the Heythrop Hunt which was only a mile away!
With plenty of sabs covering the North Cotswold who were now armed with useful local knowledge (location of badger setts and so on) we decided to take a small group of our own sabs over to the Heythrop Hunt. All of our groups were close enough to offer each other back up in case of emergency.
The Heythrop Hunt have ‘stalkers’ who follow us around as soon as we are spotted so we try to get inland before we are seen so that we can keep eyes on them unhindered. Sometimes, though, we have to blow our cover early and this happened on Saturday… With two sabs on foot near Slaughter Woods another two of us were dropped inland from the A429, a guess as to which way the hunt may be headed. We were perfectly positioned when we heard the hunt coming towards us and we hid in a small covert to keep an eye on their activities. Terriermen rode into the area and proceeded to take a white terrier, locator collar and nets out of the quad box whilst hounds circled the area. Sabs confronted the terriermen and they took the nets and terrier away, our usual stalkers Di and Lizzie being called into the area.
Terriermen refused to tell us what they were up to, telling us that there was ‘nothing in there’ and that they weren’t running away. Why the nets boys? Why mask up when you realised we were present? Why did the hunt then scarper out of the area, being spotted by other foot sabs looking tense and worried? Why have us stalked from then on? Dig-out / fox being flushed or bagged up averted…
Great to hear that locals had spotted the Cotswold Vale Farmers’ Hunt out and about in Sandhurst and kept an eye on them from Nature in Art off the A38 and great that others were able to check setts around the Croome and West Warwickshire meet at Rous Lench. Keep the tip-offs coming in everyone – we can’t make every meet but we have an amazing network of people who will check setts and ‘walk their dogs’ or ‘go rambling’ in the vicinity of hunt meets. When we have some more time we’ll put the finishing touches to our ‘advice if you spot a hunt’ to help people feel more confident about what to do if a hunt is in there area.