Hit Report : Eton Beagles, Thursday 18th October 2018
Meet : Chesil Beach car park
After a tip off that the Eton Beagle pack were heading to West Dorset to murder our wildlife we decided to take a quick break from our days badger work and go and pay them a visit. The meet was at Chesil Beach car park which is just along the road from Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens, all this land and much of the surrounding area including chesil beach is owned by a keen bloodsports woman – Charlotte Townshend. Charlotte, who claims to be a committed wildlife conservationist ( see link below ) owns her own hunt, the Cattistock who we have witnessed many times on the line of a fox !
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/…/Charity-patron-driven-out-by-…
Hare murderers are rather elusive and hard to find so as we were patrolling round the Swannery side scouring the lovely countryside we bumped into Weymouth Animal Rights and before long hatched a plan to cover a wider area including the tropical gardens side. After passing the subtropical gardens and arriving at the Chesil Beach car park we immediately saw the pack in the field beside the road and the beagles were being taken up in the direction of Countess Coppice where they were drawing the hedgerows. We drove along the road south of them with the foot supporters moving out the way to let us through – they were not expecting us and even gave us a wave ! As the beagles went in to the field beside Countess Coppice we could hear the hounds speaking. A foot sab exited the vehicle having spotted a sty and hot footed it up the hill, the hounds went into cry so the sab used the gizmo to pull the hounds off the huntsman. For the next 5 – 10 minutes a game of beagle ping pong was had between our sab and the huntsman and the beagles went back and forth allowing the hare to escape. Whilst our sab was enjoying the game the huntsman wasn’t so much and was cracking his whip trying to control the pack but to no avail. So he headed down the hill onto the road and past our vehicle and the foot support who were now shouting at us and telling us that it we weren’t allowed to be on the road … they didn’t mind earlier !!
A female supporter appeared from chesil beach and started filming us and later claimed she had the whole days ( we say day it was more like 15 minutes max ) events on film and could prove they were on a trail, the only trail laid today was her trail of lies !
Now joined by another foot sab we escorted the huntsman and the hounds back to the end of the road where WAR were waiting for them and we all saw them back to their vehicle which was parked in Chesil Beach Car Park. The beagles that didn’t go into the trailer straight away were each grabbed by the scruff of their necks and thrown into the trailer which was awful to watch.
We remained in the car park to ensure they didn’t go back out on another killing spree. The master with his silly socks still on came over to take a few photos of us and it was ironic that he had a phone case with a hare on it ….. why have something on the cover of your phone that you will be partly responsible for making extinct ??
Along with the badgers we are fighting so hard to save especially during this cull, the hare is one of the UK’s most iconic species. Hare numbers are thought to have declined by 80% since the late 19th century.
If you would like to let Charlotte Townshend know your thoughts on her constantly allowing wildlife to be killed on her land illegally you can do that here ……
https://www.facebook.com/AbbotsburySubtropicalGardens/
If you want to join us in the field please send us a PM or email us at dorsethuntsabs@riseup.net
Any info on the hunts please let us know ASAP wether that be a whole meet card or a single meet.
https://www.gofundme.com/badger-cull-final-push
If you can spare us a few quid towards our fuel we will greatly appreciate it