First up it was the Royal Agricultural College Beagles, the student hare hunting pack of the Royal Agricultural University based in Cirencester. The last time this hunt had sab company was their final meet of the 2012/2013 season. That time the small group of sabs were immediately attacked by a number of men in balaclavas whilst being surrounded by stick wielding foot followers of the hunt. Today was a different story as we showed them that violence and intimidation will not put sabs off from stopping them hunting wildife.
We rocked up just as they were leaving their Culkerton meet, just outside of Tetbury, and were straight after the huntsman and his hounds. After early attempts at intimidation from hunt support failed, huntsman Harry Gosling took off and tried to lose us but to no avail. It wasn’t long before a couple of police cars turned up and officers were trying to hold sabs up, between exchanging pleasantries with the hunters (unsurprisingly). We lost the hunt for a brief period of time but it wasn’t long before we came across a running hare, with the beagles in cry not far behind. We were straight into the field and soon spraying after the hare and rating hounds. Gosling took his hounds into the next field, where again they were straight onto another hare, with sab intervention they soon lost it.
Gosling was told in no uncertain terms what we thought about his idea of ‘sport’ and looking a bit sheepish he decided to head back to the hound van. On the walk back we were reminded of the backwards mindsets of these young representatives of the upper class, who were cracking jokes about people who live in council houses, dishing out xenophobic insults and generally claiming their right ‘to do what they bloody well like’ to whoever and whatever they like because of who their parents are. We disagreed strongly and they were soon putting the hounds back in their van and getting out of there, but not before one of their elderly followers feebly tried to break our windscreen with the walking stick and another supporter jumped on our landrover bonnet in a failed attempt to stop us…
Today sabs saw hounds in pursuit of at least 3 hares during the short time the hunt were out (videos to follow). Sabs helped a couple of these hares away to safety and we’re pretty sure that no kills were made. This would almost certainly have been different if we weren’t present. Oh, and the posh boys of the RAC Beagles don’t like it up ’em…
Next we were off to introduce ourselves to the new huntsman of the Cotswold Vale Farmers Hunt, who were around Newent Woods. Three Counties Hunt Saboteurs were with them all day and also had some success, helping at least one fox to safety. Within 30 minutes of us turning up they were back at the meet packing up, just after 3pm. Job done and and time to go home.
Hunters will be hunted…