*** blocked setts found around hunt meet ***
10am: The Ledbury hunt have their Opening meet at the Corse Lawn Hotel in the next hour. Last night they blocked this actice badger sett to stop any foxes escaping down it; the only reason to block setts is of you intend to illegally hunt foxes. This is in Gloucestershire badger cull zone 1 where badgers will continue to be trapped until the end of November and shot well into January. We have sabs out inland at the moment and others checking setts and locals “rambling” in the vicinity who will be monitoring the hunt throughout the day.
*** blocked badger setts found near hunt meet * holloas heard and sabs rate hounds off fox’s line * hunt hounds trespassing in a local’s garden * hunt supporters sit in vehicles as stray hound runs on to main road * hunt draw for a fresh fox at dusk ***
A huge amount of walking today as we started early with checking badger setts, finding blocked setts in a well-hunted area. Some entrances were unblocked to allow any foxes to escape below ground if needed and the badgers to get back out easily. We checked for badger cull activity while out and with the miles covered today, that’s a lot of checking done!
The hunt set off from their meet just after 11am and headed for Corse. We headed that way as we had decided to stay inland (as many areas around here are difficult to find the hunt in and then get into ourselves) and soon found them hunting at Corse Hill, deer running towards nearby main roads with no whipper-in present to slow traffic or hounds if needed. One sab went inland while the other stayed on the road as hounds were hunting at her side of the woodland. More setts checked.
Off to the south and another group arrived in the area and hunt supporters acted immaturely and drove really slowly in front of their car to slow them down, to the point where our footsab caught up and overtook – what are the hunt trying to hide? The hounds picked up and it became obvious that the pack had split and two groups of hounds were hunting separate scents – the whipper-in had a horn with him and had been trying to gather but for some time there were two hunts occurring simultaneously…
Down towards Ashleworth then back past Corse Grove and quickly up into Tirley where we lost the hunt for a little while and decided to retrieve the vehicle… a stray hound ran out in front of us as we headed back towards Corse Lawn and, despite trying to gain hunt supporters’ attention to slow traffic on the busy main road or try to grab the hound, only one elderly lady actually bothered to help with other supporters sitting on their arses while sabs slowed traffic – the same supporters then stated that sabs had called him on the road and this is why we film everything we do and they do not – because our footage backs up what we say and their footage would contradict their lies…
We soon caught up with some hunt supporters and located the hunt in Chaceley. Two holloas were heard to the south of the road we were on and suddenly hounds were to our left – sabs jumped out of the vehicle and rated the pack off the line and hunt staff made the decision to gather hounds and leave the fox!
Hunt supporters stated that the hunt were hacking back to pack up at Pigeon House Farm in Eldersfield but we know they often do a few last draws behind the farm and, sure enough, a sab ran inland and found terriermen near a sett and hounds drawing through a small covert with the daylight fading rapidly. Having drawn black the hunt actually packed up, just a few minutes before 5pm.
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