September:
It’s a very busy time of year for North Wales Hunt Saboteurs, and we’d like to let you know some of the things we will be upto this month.
Firstly we’d like to address this mornings newspaper articles about the cat that was reported to have been shot by both pellet gun and shot gun in Conwy Valley. The Conwy Valley being relevant to something we’ll talk about a bit later on in this blog. http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/cat-shot-rspca-shotgun-conwy-13558943.amp
Air guns/pellet guns can be brought by anybody, no license needed. This really need to change, the law allows anybody to walk into a shop and buy one, often resulting in somebody getting a pellet in their head or wildlife being blasted at. Shot guns on the other hand you need a license, though the whole licencing system is a joke. Any farmer can get his grubby hands on a licence by claiming it’s for pest control. The same with gamekeepers. Just prove you’re of stable mind” hmm anyone who wishes to blast wildlife to bits is not of stable mind in our opinion. Gun licences are handed out to any Tom, Dick or Norman Bates. And what makes is worse is the taxpayers foot the bill! Honest good people who object to barbaric bloodsport are paying for these scurge of the countryside to be armed with guns. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2014/apr/24/taxpayer-subsidies-price-firearms-licence
We are now into cub hunting season. And we’ve had numerous reports of illegal activity across North Wales these last couple of weeks. Check out our blog and what is cub hunting and what should you be looking out for. https://network23.org/northwaleshuntsabs/2017/07/25/cub-hunting/
Unfortunately these reports to us are coming in after the event so there’s nothing we can do about it. We’ve had reports of 2 different hunts out. These were reported to us on Facebook. One of the first things we ask people is ‘Did you report it to the police?’ And a reply we’ve received twice this past week is “No not after last time I reported it”.
The public really have no faith in the police investigating or even turning up. We feel your pain, we get it ourselves. 12 months ago we called 101 and asked for assistance after witnessing the Flint and Denbigh hunt out cub hunting in Dolwen, chase a fox out of cover and across the road. The response from the operator on the phone was “How do you know this is illegal”. The same day we heard of a further 2 calls to the police regarding the illegal hunting in Dolwen. The police never turned up and never gave us an explanation why. We z urge people to contact us and contact the police if you come across and hunts. Don’t be fobbed off my the police. Hunting with a pack of hounds is illegal, they’re not trail hunting and they’re not exercising their hounds. Make sure the police give you an incident number when you call it in, that way you can chase up what the police are doing about it. One of the reports we’ve received was of a footpack out near Tal y Cafn in the Conwy Valley. Witnesses saw at lease 10 hounds and heard the hounds go into cry and heard numerous gun shots. Again this is illegal, you cannot use a pack of hounds to flush a fox to gun. If was later reported to us members of this hunt, we expect is the Conwy Valley hunt were in the pub boasting about shooting 7 foxes. We’d suggest this is a good place to start in the investigations into the shot cat in Conwy Valley. Another report we received was of the Flint and Denbigh hunt out at dawn above the back of Abergele. Not only were this hunt illegally hunting fox cubs but were trespassing on land they’ve already been told they are not welcome on. The arrogance of this hunt and childishness of their followers is something to make you wonder how do they cope in everyday life when they have to come into contact with civilised people. Again these 2 incidents were not reported to the police due to previous bad experiences. Check this link out to find out what you can do about hunt trespass. http://www.houndsoff.co.uk/
We are all awaiting of news of this year’s badger culls. The licenses have been issues for Gloucestershire and Somerset but very strange no news on anywhere else. We plan to be in the Cheshire cull Zone this year which will be much closer that where we’ve spent the last for years in Gloucestershire. This will allow us also focus on local hunts who will be out cubbing. If you are interested in joining us in Cheshire this year, then please go over to Facebook and contact Cheshire Against The Cull for more information. There are also alternative Facebook pages for different cull zone. A good source of reliable information to keep you upto date on badger cull news in ‘Stop the cull’. We are also keeping tabs on the situation on targeted culling in Wales. We will write a blog on the farcical ‘targeted cull’ in Wales at a later date. But for more information on what’s happening in Wales please check out the Facebook page ‘Stop the Welsh cull’ who we will be working closely with should there be an attempt to exterminate the badger in Wales.
Thanks for all your support and if you can spare a small donation to help us, then here is the link. https://gogetfunding.com/help-to-buy-car-for-sabbing/
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