The next battle for hunting

In this week 14 years ago the Hunting Act came into force. The anniversary may have passed you by as we have stopped questioning that hunts continue to operate and hunting continues in its modified form. In reality, however, that normality is a quite extraordinary achievement. We all know what the goal behind those campaigning for the ban on hunting was. It was not about wildlife management or animal welfare. It was pure uncluttered bigotry and the determination to use huge parliamentary majorities to extinguish what had, bizarrely, become the personification of Tory England for many on the left of politics.

They may have succeeded in passing their legislation, but they completely failed in their primary aim of eradicating hunts and the culture of hunting. That is the result of one of the most determined campaigns in recent political history. We can look back over the last 14 years with huge pride at the resilience of the hunting community and the extraordinary work of the Countryside Alliance. Together we have succeeded where nearly every other campaign fails in sustaining an activity, a community, a way of life through the draconian legislation that was supposed to end it.

The animal rights movement has thrown everything it has at getting rid of hunting. It has spent millions of pounds on covert surveillance, investigation and prosecution. It has lied, denigrated and misrepresented. Massively well funded organisations like the RSPCA, IFAW and LACS lined up to take the 'credit' for applying the coup de grace. Yet again, and again we have beaten them back. From the first Hunting Act prosecution involving a huntsman, Tony Wright of the Exmoor, whose acquittal was eventually confirmed in the High Court in London, through the exposure of the dysfunctional, wasteful and deeply unethical behaviour of the RSPCA, to three more failed prosecutions against hunts based on vindictive allegations by LACS and other extremists in the last few months we have won battle after battle.

So complete is our victory that there is almost no reporting or surprise at the passing of another year of hunting under the ban. For years before the Hunting Act was passed, and several years after, the question was always 'is this the last season of hunting?', or 'are these the last Boxing Day meets?'. No-one is asking those questions now.

We must not, however, be complacent and the reality of the modern countryside is that hunts are facing all sorts of pressures from development, increasing population and competition from other activities which in many cases are having a greater impact than the Hunting Act. The next challenge for hunting, and it is one that the hunting associations and the Countryside Alliance are fully engaged with, is to create a sustainable infrastructure to take hunting forward for the next 50 years. The victory over the Hunting Act will be a pyrrhic one if we do not ensure that future generations have the opportunity to experience the wonder of following hounds.

Follow me at @CA_TimB

Photo Credit - Lee Isted @lristed83