British Fox Hunters Test Bounds of New Ban

Reuters


Feb. 19, 2005 - Baying packs of hounds and a cavalcade of riders set out across the English and Welsh countryside Saturday to test the limits of a ban on the time-honored British sport of hunting foxes.

 The controversial law, which has pitched animal rights campaigners against hunters who trace their pursuit back centuries, came into force Friday after the Labor government forced the legislation through parliament late last year.

 But with much scope for confusion in the legal text, a bitterly fought argument about the rights and wrongs of using dogs to chase and kill foxes, deer, hares and mink is likely to drag on.

 "Thousands of people are sending a message and that's that this ban cannot work," Labor MP Kate Hoey told a crowd of several hundred riders and supporters from the Beaufort Hunt in the west of England.

 "This law is unenforceable, this law is unjust and I have every confidence in my country and the people of my country that an unjust law cannot last," she said to applause and cheers.

 Though several countries hunt foxes with dogs, the classic British image of scarlet-clad horsemen blowing horns and shouting "Tally Ho!" is the one of popular imagination.

 BITTER ARGUMENTS

 That Hoey should speak out against her own party's law, to an audience traditionally opposed to Labor policies, is just one of the many anomalies thrown up in what have been bitter arguments leading up to the ban.

 Countryside Alliance chief Simon Hart, whose organization has campaigned in favor of hunting, said more than 250 hunts were due to take place in England and Wales Saturday.

 "The intention is to hunt within the law, as everybody's indicated, whatever that means," he said as a couple of dozen of the Beaufort's hounds left for their day's activity behind blue-jacketed huntsmen.

 Under the Hunting Act, hounds can still legally flush a fox from cover and follow artificial scent trails. Their handler would break the law only if "he knowingly permits" them to hunt a wild mammal.

"Of course accidents may occur," said Hart.

 Hunt opponents including the League Against Cruel Sports have been infuriated by that stance, vowing to police the law themselves if the authorities do not.

 "The League did not campaign for 80 years for a ban on the barbarity of hunting with dogs just to watch bloodsport enthusiasts flaunt the law," League Chief Executive Douglas Batchelor said in a statement marking the ban's entry into force.

 "We will be watching. The public will be watching. Lawbreakers will be prosecuted."

 The League has launched Hunt Crime Watch, training monitors to track hunters and to gather evidence they will give to police in order to bring about convictions.

 That is likely to be hunt opponents' best chance of getting what they want, given police preoccupation with higher crimes.

 Gloucester police inspector Richard Smith, on whose ground the Beaufort met, said the ban would be enforced but in competition for time with priority offences such as violence against the person, burglary and anti-social behavior.

 "We are treating it as a sensitive priority at this stage," he said, meaning the first day of the ban was getting particular attention.

 "But obviously it's got to fight for priority with other issues in due course," he added.

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