Four Burrow Hunt present cheque of thanks to all those involved in hounds rescue effort

On Sunday 29^th July 2019, the Four Burrow Hunt made a presentation to the Fire Fighters Charity at the hunt's annual puppy show, held at their kennels in St Day, near Redruth in Cornwall.

In November 2018, six hounds went missing during a day's legal trail-hunting and a round-the-clock search for them ensued. The Cornwall Search & Rescue Team located the hounds after consulting mining maps and then followed the difficult process to rescue the hounds.

The four hounds that were saved were able to continue their hunting activities within two weeks of the ordeal and were present on Sunday during the presentation. Sadly two hounds lost their lives during this very unusual event but the fact that four were largely unscathed was described as "miraculous" by the hunt staff that look after them daily and who were understandably devastated to lose two of their hounds.

"We are still incredibly grateful to all those who worked tirelessly to locate and rescue the hounds which simply vanished while out trail-hunting, "explained joint-master Paul Hancock. "Our hunt supporters wanted to show their appreciation to those involved in bringing these hounds back to safety so we organised a raffle and other social events which raised a total of £1,000 for the teams involved and we are delighted to present £500 today to the Fire Fighters Charity."

The presentation was made to former firefighter Keith Viszell who later tweeted: "Today I was privileged to receive a cheque on behalf of the Fire Fighters Charity from the Four Burrow Hunt."

The Fire Fighters Charity serve all fire service personnel during their times of need, and assist thousands of individuals each year, by providing pioneering treatment and support services.

The charity has three UK centres, located in Cumbria Devon and West Sussex, which offer varying combinations of therapy and recuperation services.

Polly Portwin, Head of Hunting at the Countryside Alliance which has over 100,000 members nationwide said: "It was a real pleasure to be on hand to witness the presentation of the cheque to this amazing charity and to witness the hunting community pulling together to make a difference both locally and nationally. Our firefighting and rescue teams do so much to keep us safe and have shown during this incident that they stop at nothing to get the job done. We all owe them a debt of gratitude."

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