the hunting of wildlife with packs of dogs - ARCHIVE: Defra

HUNTING WITH DOGS: HEARINGS ON THE EVIDENCE
(9-11 SEPTEMBER 2002)
Session 3B
THE HUNTING OF WILDLIFE WITH PACKS OF DOGS
Paper by Mike Huskisson
I have spent the past 31 years observing the pastime of hunting our wildlife with packs of
dogs. I have observed fox hunts, stag hunts, hare hunts with beagles, bassets and harriers,
mink hunts and otter hunts. I have also observed hare coursing, both legal and illegal. I
have observed hunts throughout most parts of the United Kingdom and in the Republic of
Ireland. In the Republic of Ireland I have observed the pastime of Carted Staghunting. I
have also observed the humane alternative, draghunting and bloodhounds, in the United
Kingdom.
I have observed live quarry hunts both in the undercover role, posing as a supporter of
such hunting, and as an opponent of hunting.
I have followed packs of dogs on foot, on a bicycle, on a motorbike, by car and I have
even been driven around in a terrierman’s Landrover. I have also followed a pack of dogs
on horseback (i.e. ridden to hounds in the undercover role).
I have seen foxes caught by the dogs above ground and dug-out and killed by terriermen.
I have seen red deer stags caught and killed at hunts and attended hunts when hinds were
killed. I have also attended a hunt when a red deer hind and calf were killed. I have seen
hares caught and killed by packs of dogs and killed at coursing meetings. I have seen
mink, both adults and young, killed by packs of dogs.
I have also seen the measures taken by hunt supporters to ensure a good supply of quarry.
I have seen artificial earths, built by hunt supporters for foxes to breed in, in every part of
England and also in Wales. I have seen 31 artificial earths in the small area hunted by the
[ ] foxhounds alone. I have seen the largest artificial earth that I know of in the
Lake District in the very heart of sheep rearing. I have seen logpiles built by hunt
supporters to provide shelter for foxes above ground. I have seen food put out by hunt
supporters to feed foxes. I have seen dead chickens, lambs, adult sheep, calves and even
boxes of bacon rinds dumped in woods, usually near artificial earths, as food for foxes. I
have also seen two live cubs held captive in appalling conditions in an artificial earth in a
wood owned by a Yorkshire based hunt. I have also seen hares netted and moved by hare
coursing enthusiasts.
I have seen the pastime of hunting our wildlife with packs of dogs as it really is. Not as it
is claimed to be by its supporters. Not as it is believed to be by apologists for it who have
never seen it.
It is my experience that this amusement is both inherently cruel and entirely unnecessary.

Participants in the pastime can make whatever rule changes they wish but at the interface
between the dogs and their quarry the cruelty will always remain.
Fundamentally, it is cruel by design and cruel by calculation. Opponents of the pastime
label it a bloodsport. Supporters term it a fieldsport. The common term is “sport”. Where
the killing of an animal is concerned “sport” means cruelty because once the animal is
dead the “sport” is by and large over. So the death is protracted.
This is proven in the hunting of wildlife with packs of dogs by the following factors:-
a) The preference for using packs of dogs that are bred to beat their quarry for
stamina, not for speed. It is an essential element of all such hunting that the quarry
should not be “overmatched”. If the quarry is killed too quickly there is no
opportunity for the Huntsman to test his mettle at controlling his pack to hunt the
scent left by the fleeing quarry. If the quarry is killed too quickly there is no
opportunity for the followers, whether mounted or on foot, to gain the thrill they
seek (and often pay dearly for) of following the pack.
b) The steps taken in some of the pastimes to delay the kill by giving the quarry a
“second chance”, or third, fourth and fifth chance. In the hunting of the red deer
this involves giving a tiring quarry a chance to recuperate in order to prolong the
chase for a further few miles. In foxhunting this may appear as the practice of
giving a fox that is bolted from an underground sanctuary a degree of “law”. The
dogs are held back to give the fleeing fox a chance to escape. This is viewed as
“sporting”. Whilst it may give the fleeing quarry a slim chance of escape it will
certainly guarantee more fun for the human participants. It also appears during
cubhunting when a good strong cub that runs away from the hounds above ground
will be allowed to escape. The aim is to select that cub for attention by the pack
later in the season, in the same area, thus hopefully guaranteeing at least one good
fox for a hunt there.
Harecoursing differs from hunting with packs of dogs in that in harecoursing the dogs are
bred to overmatch the quarry. The dogs are bred for the speed to catch the quarry. In
greyhound coursing they lack the stamina necessary to run the hares to exhaustion. In
legal coursing the avoidance of a quick kill that would disappoint spectators of the
pastime is achieved by the practice of giving the fleeing hare a start.
A cruelty that occurs in all hunting with packs of dogs concerns the common frequency
with which the pack runs riot and switches to another live quarry. I have witnessed this
countless times. Switching of the quarry even within the target species should not occur
and real steps are taken to avoid it. That it does occur is regarded as unwelcome but
almost unavoidable by hunt supporters. Switching of the pack to hunt another species
causes far more problems. It leads to riots where foxhounds chase deer, harehounds chase
rabbits and all types of hounds can chase farm livestock and domestic pets. Because the
professed quarry can conceivably flee to any of the sites that the hounds run to it is often
hard for the hunt staff and followers to perceive that they are in a riot situation and
accordingly take steps to stop their hounds. This would not be the case where the humane
alternative of draghunting is concerned. In draghunting the quarry is selected and the

oute determined within set variables so any variation is quickly detected and thereby the
consequences avoided.
Hound riot can lead to cruelty and anguish to non-target species. It can also cause grief to
humans involved. Slamming a car into a pack of dogs cause great distress. Slamming a
train into a pack of dogs causes great distress. This would be far less likely to occur in
draghunting.
There is also cruelty in the practices of the individual pastimes as detailed in the annex.
CONCLUSION
The pastime of hunting wild animals with packs of dogs is both inherently cruel and
unnecessary. Hunting with dogs can only become humane when the live animal is
removed from the quarry list.

ANNEX
1) FOXHUNTING
A fundamental cruelty in the pastime of hunting foxes with packs of dogs lies in the fact
that foxes are hunted throughout their breeding season. Vixens are hunted and killed
when both pregnant and nursing their young. I have seen the delight with which
terriermen turf the unborn foetuses from the torn womb of a dead, dug-out vixen. Many
hunts continue well into April, some even into May.
There is cruelty in the digging out of quarry that has sought sanctuary below ground.
There are few “instant kills” when foxes are caught by a pack of dogs above ground. It is

are for a fox to be caught by the whole pack of dogs, the only time when the kill might
be nigh on instant. Such a kill, where the quarry is effectively “chopped” is frowned on
by hunting purists and hunting literature has advice on how to avoid such occurrences.
More commonly the pack is strung out and one or two dogs catch the fox. More common
still is for the fox to be dug out and there are no “instant kills” in digging out. Apologists
for the pastime now declare that terriers can be re-trained, virtually against all their
natural instincts, not to attack the fox below ground. I have seen no evidence for this and
regard it as impossible unless the terrier is to be tightly muzzled which would be both
dangerous and foolish. When the terrier is head to head with the fox if the fox snaps at or
bites the terrier the latter will retaliate in kind. In the converse if the fox is trapped with
his backside facing the terrier the latter is only more likely to attack.
There is cruelty in the creation and use of artificial earths for foxes to breed in. Where the
vixens are killed and their offspring are moved into man-made homes and fed and
watered by man, as can happen, the result is a far from wild fox. A fox that has little idea
how to adapt to its natural environment. A hundred years and more ago when hunting
literature was full of advice as to how to build and maintain artificial earths, they were
properly built. At that time the need for proper construction and in particular the need to
avoid damp to avoid the scourge of mange was stressed. Nowadays it seems that
countless bloodsports enthusiasts in our countryside regard themselves as experts at
building artificial earths. These man-made constructions are shoved in, usually at great
expense in terms of both time and money, in our countryside with seemingly little
thought given to the well-being of the foxes expected to take up residence. Many have
become stinking cess-pits, reservoirs for disease.
There is cruelty in the dumping of dead livestock in our countryside by hunt supporters in
order to feed foxes. Disease is caused to domestic animals that might feed on the
carcasses, to farm livestock that suffer from the spread of ailments and to wildlife that
feed on the carcasses.
There is cruelty in the practice of moving cubs into artificial earths blocking them in and
rearing them in conditions of captivity. Squalid captivity.
The common usage of artificial earths by hunt supporters also causes cruelty and illegal
cruelty at that when those artificial earths are taken over by badgers, as often happens.
Then, when the artificial earths are stopped on hunt days it is done in the manner usual
for artificial earths of hard-stopping with blocks of concrete, or blocks of wood or slate.
Such hard-stopping of what is not only an artificial earth but now also a badger sett is
illegal. Where this has happened in the past and we have complained to the police the
hunt involved simply refused to identify who it was who stopped the sett and that was the
end of the matter.
The pastime of using terriers to dig-out foxes is an effective training ground for those
who wish to progress to a better test of gameness in their terriers, namely setting their
dogs on badgers, or in the ultimate stage by setting terrier against terrier. I have been
involved in investigations into characters who have run this whole gamut of cruelty.
Points to highlight since the Lord Burns Hunting Inquiry include the flouting of DEFRA
regulations by hunt supporters.

In December 2001, in a wood regularly hunted by the [ ] Foxhounds, I found two
calves dumped close to an artificial earth as food for foxes. This was before foxhunting
had been allowed to resume after the horrors of foot and mouth. The calves had no
identification tags.
In April 2002, in an area of the Lake District that is regularly hunted by the [ ]
Foxhounds, I found a large, open and unfenced pit full of dead sheep and dead lambs near
to an artificial earth that is only a few years old. Other dead sheep were left scattered
about the field.
In terms of utility, foxhunting as a means of controlling the fox population is wholly
ineffective. The efforts made by some hunts to encourage foxes by building artificial
earths, constructing logpiles and stickpile as secure bases for foxes above ground and by
putting out food for foxes, means that they actually put more foxes into the area they hunt
than they ever take out. Furthermore the foxes that they encourage, because they are far
from wild, are likely to cause problems to the local ecology.
2) STAGHUNTING
The first cruelty highlighted concerns the misnomer of the name. All red deer are hunted,
stags, hinds and calves. The hinds are pregnant the whole time they are hunted and
towards the end of the hindhunting season, in February they are heavily pregnant.
Despite all claims to the contrary from apologists for staghunting it was my experience in
the past and it is the experience of colleagues in the present that the hounds can and do
attack the quarry when they are able to. Further, what is claimed to be always a “oneshot”
finish to the hunt with the quarry at bay, all too often takes more than one shot.
Another inherent cruelty in this pastime concerns the fact that the pack of dogs regularly
splits into many constituent mini-packs, each hunting their own individual quarry. When
I was undercover within staghunting this factor was accepted with some considerable
relish by the hunt supporters. It increased their prospects for seeing some hunting. But the
opportunity for cruelty to be inflicted on the deer, out of sight, is obvious.
In terms of utility the pastime of staghunting is the very antithesis of what would be
intended as the humane management of red deer. The staghunters take delight in
selecting, hunting and killing the very best of the males. Conversely they find it
particularly hard to kill the hinds because all hinds look much the same and the dogs
readily switch from hunting one to hunting another.
3) HARECOURSING
It is my experience after many years of observing both, and of trying to end both, that
legal coursing is the skirt behind which illegal coursing can hide. There is a common
interchange of participants. Those who are illegal coursers one day can be spectators of
legal coursing the next. There can be few illegal harecoursers who have not at some time
supported legal harecoursing through their attendance at such events. People do not
become illegal harecoursers overnight. They have to learn how to course hares and how

to condition their dogs to do so effectively. It seems reasonable to assume that many do
so by attending and observing legal coursing events.
The continued practice of moving hares for legal coursing causes cruelty. The cruelty lies
in the manner in which the hares are caught. And the way they are handled. And how and
over what distance they are transported. Plus the very real fact that as they are continually
being moved into the area to provide hares for the annual Waterloo Cup there must be
some fault in the local environment that renders it incapable of sustaining a high enough
population of hares for the event. Accordingly the hares that are shipped up there
regularly each year are all shipped to their deaths. Whether on the actual coursing field or
through being run over as they spread out in a quest for food, or through falling victim to
illegal harecoursers attracted by the presence of large numbers of hares in the area.
It is worthy of note that legal harecoursing has evolved to a new level of cruelty since the
Lord Burns Hunting Inquiry. At the Greyhound 2000 coursing event held in East Anglia
in December 2000 on at least one of the days the hares were being funnelled on to the
coursing field by extensive lengths of chicken mesh fencing. Hares fleeing the beaters
were seen to hit this obstacle at full speed. This was prior to even being coursed on the
running field. This is a far cry from hares running in the free and natural state and is
something that I have never previously seen at a coursing meeting in the UK.
It is my personal experience that illegal coursing flourishes, even during the time when
legal coursing was suspended due to foot and mouth regulations, because members of the
public confuse it with the legal variety. If a dogfight or a cockfight were to be staged
beside a busy road the police would be flooded with 999 calls. When illegal coursing
occurs in such areas, as it regularly does in some parts of East Anglia, the passing public
are simply unaware that it is illegal.
It terms of utility hare hunting with packs of dogs and hare coursing are simply not means
of controlling the hare population. If hare numbers were abundant packs of dogs simply
would not be able to kill enough to have any effect on the population. The dogs switch
from one hare to another far too easily. Since the Lord Burns Hunting Inquiry I have had
it confirmed to me, by a harehunter himself, that they have no real idea how many hares
their dogs kill, or even if they kill any hares at all on a day! My experience of this
pastime is that they torment and terrify a lot of hares. They kill a few, kill some leverets,
and put a few myxomatosis rabbits out of their misery. The converse question then needs
to be considered. Namely, the extent to which hare hunting and hare coursing can protect
the hare population. It is claimed that where there is hare coursing there will be hares as
the hares are preserved for the coursing. The question to be considered is whether in the
scale of things for hares across the whole of the UK is the threat to the species posed by
widespread coursing, legal and illegal, offset or not by the benefit to hares from a few
coursing loving landowners treating them benevolently? Clearly not. Our hares would
benefit from the absence of coursing.
Coursing fanatics regularly running their dogs can clear up a lot of hares. I have done a
lot of work with the police in East Anglia to combat illegal harecoursing. When we find,
as we do, that illegal coursers travel from Yorkshire to Suffolk, and from Berkshire to

Cambridgeshire to course hares, they do so because they have so reduced the hare
population in their own localities that they are all but impossible to find.
4) MINKHUNTING
It is my personal experience of minkhunting that those involved in this pastime are
certainly keen to have fun with mink. They want to find mink, want to hunt them and
want to kill them, but not all they find. They most certainly do not want to eradicate the
species.
Perhaps the greatest change impinging on this pastime has been the recovery of the otter
population throughout the UK. It is believed that the otter, being much larger than the
mink, dominates the latter when inter-species conflict occurs. Increasing numbers of
otters could reduce the numbers of mink. Minkhunts operate in an environment that is
shared by both mink and otter.
Minkhunts use a motley collection of hounds. Many are simply ex-foxhounds retrained to
hunt mink rather than fox. In their career as foxhounds they would have been prone to
riot, perhaps chasing deer or hares. In Minkhunts they would be no more immune to riot.
Indeed perhaps more prone to riot. In a foxhunt the hunt staff would be mounted and thus
able to gallop ahead and attempt to halt the riot. In a minkhunt the staff are on foot, and
the summer vegetation is often dense, so a minkhunt riot is harder to halt. There is a clear
danger of minkhounds rioting after otter. Not perhaps a very real threat of them catching
and killing an adult otter but a very real threat of disturbance. And they could catch and
kill otter cubs. It is memorable that on the day of the one visit by the Lord Burns Hunting
Inquiry team to see a minkhunt in action the only creature that the dogs were actually
seen to hunt was a moorhen! It escaped.
In terms of utility minkhunting as a means of controlling the mink population is
ineffective. Many more mink are hunted than are ever killed. Those that are hunted but
escape are driven to pastures new. This has been happening for decades now. The
predecessor pastime of otterhunting, and then the subsequent activity of minkhunting, has
been one of the prime factors in the spread of mink the length and breadth of our
countryside. Our mink population originated from localised escapes from mink farms.
The pastime of hunting our river systems with packs of dogs, after whatever quarry,
converted mink populations from local to nationwide. The pastime of hunting wildlife
with dogs made mink endemic in our countryside. In terms of control it is a direct
analogy that hunting coypu with packs of dogs in East Anglia only hampered the efforts
at control made by MAFF.