Well, the day was a good one for intel. especially regarding hunt meets, and we spent the early morning deciding just where to go! One of our regular hunts, the Ross Harriers were out in the Peterstow area, meeting at the Red Lion, so a couple of sabs headed there to meet up with our friends from Southampton Sabs, South Wales Hunt Saboteurs, Bristol Hunt Saboteurs and a few other local sabs. We’ve put a lot of pressure on this hunt over the last two seasons and we’re not planning to ease up now. The hunt seem to have lost a lot of support so they need someone to turn up to their meets!
Our other sabs went out to respond to a tip-off about another local hunt meet, but it looks like they may well have cancelled due to the weather. Time wasn’t wasted as a number of badger setts were checked in the area at the same time. Not to be put off by the weather ourselves, we then headed to Eldersfield, part of our area within the Gloucestershire Cull Zone, to visit the Leadon Vale Basset Hounds who were meeting early afternoon at Pigeon House Farm (which you may have heard of numerous times during said cull).
Meanwhile, the Ross Harriers (who are kenneled with the Leadon Vale) were having a bad day, being kept on the run and seeing sabs (and not much of their own support) everywhere they turned.
The Leadon Vale’s intel. obviously isn’t as good as ours as they thought we were only out with them because we couldn’t find the Harriers and one of the hunt staff said “keep up if you can love” to a sab who loves cross-country running… She was too busy laughing to have a go about being called “love”. They can be fast, but we were either with them or in a better strategic position all day. We’ll have to spend more time with this lot so they can get to know us better…
Despite saying they were out hunting rabbits and squirrels, the hounds picked up on only one rabbit which ran into a nearby warren and picked up on several hare and even a fox. The hunt would likely have called the hounds back off the fox even if we weren’t there but we believe our presence stopped the hare being hunted. We played “adopt a hunter” for a while, sticking close to the hunt staff so we wouldn’t “put up” (scare) any hare from their hiding places and the hounds were very responsive to voice calls from sabs and hunters alike, often being confused as to who to listen to. Hunt staff were, nonetheless, rather polite (and almost as friendly as the hounds, though thankfully didn’t want as much fuss and cuddles!)
It’s not often that you can be certain of a no-kill day, but since we were with the hounds inland from soon after they left the meet until they returned, we are pretty sure there were no casualties. The Harriers packed up around 2.30pm having run out of places to hide and also had no known kills.