Today, the League launches its Fighting Dogs campaign alongside the new Fighting Dog Crimewatch service. Today’s image shows a dog with injuries sustained in fighting.
Last night we blogged about a Facebook Group called “Anti hunt protesters are tossers, apparently”. On that post, we included a number of images posted to the Group by a number of individuals.
This morning we’ve been contacted by someone claiming to be acting on behalf of one of Mark Tong, one of the people who uploaded the photographs, asking us to remove them as we are infringing copyright law. We obviously misjudged their intentions; we thought that the wholesome upstanding individuals who’d posted them on Facebook were proud of them and would love to see them in wider circulation.
Clearly they are not proud of them and they are now rather embarrassed that their disgusting antics have been taken to a wider audience.
This morning we discover that the Facebook Group has now disappeared.
So, job done.
Those people and organisations who oppose the League and its stance are keen users of the internet. And they’re savvy users too, often using password protected sites to boast about their bloodthirsty pastimes.
Every so often, though, we come across a website exhibiting no such savoie faire, and today that included a Facebook Group, imaginitively titled “Anti hunt protesters are tossers”, set up by one Ashley Edge (see below) with the noble purpose “just to give the antis sum shit” [sic]. It should’ve been telling enough for us that the first post on the wall, by Joel Boylett, was titled “If you are proud to be British/English Then get behind BNP!!!!!!!”.
The photo album in the Group is quite something else. But as not all our blog readers will be Facebook addicts, we thought we’d post some of the images here for you to see.
One of the most prolific photo-posters on the Group is Sam Boylett (might he be related to Joel Boylett, we wonder?). These are some of the images he’s posted.
Remarking on the last photo, a certain Charlie Boylett (hmm, we see a pattern forming) comments “hard core son”. He must be such a proud father. Oh, there’s a Daniel Boylett too.
There are other contributors to the Group. Here’s David Kerry with one of his images.
And here’s an image posted by Mark Tong.
All in all a lovely bunch of people, clearly.
If you have a Facebook account, please click on the Group, scroll to the bottom, and click the ‘Report this Group’ link on the left. Select ‘Excessive gore or violent content’ and then on ‘photos’.
Finally, we welcome all reports of crime such as hunting, terrier work, and dog fighting. We treat the information anonymously and through our excellent relationship with police forces up and down the country we can effect real change.
Today’s image is from 1982 and depicts the Tetcott Foxhounds, who hail from North Cornwall and West Devon. Here, a fox has been dug out by the hunt’s terrierman (standing over on the right, with his terrier), and is being held by the tail as it is fed to the hounds.
All this becomes legal again if the hunters get their way and the Hunting Act is repealed. Help us to Keep Cruelty History.
We’re having an interesting time at the Conservative Party Spring Forum in Brighton. Running today and tomorrow, it’s the final big event for the Party before the general election. We don’t have a stand at the event but we are using it as an opportunity to talk to Conservative MPs and PPCs about our campaign issues.
What’s interesting about the discussions we’ve been having so far is that whilst hunting is an issue on which there is a clear divide between the League’s position and their belief, there is a great deal of agreement between MPs and PPCs in their support for our other campaigns. The response we’re hearing on snaring, for example, is that they are barbaric traps and should be phased out. On greyhounds, they are saying that we are right to be disappointed with the government’s new regulations. We are being congratulated for turning our attention to dog fighting.
But even within the hunting issue, there is some agreement. Fox hunting is the key dividing issue, but a repeal of the Hunting Act would bring back hare hunting and coursing, and stag hunting too. It’s very evident that that’s the elephant in the room. Very few Conservatives we’ve been speaking to – even those who back repeal of fox hunting – are keen on the idea of repealing hare coursing and stag hunting.
The challenge for us is in persuading Conservative PPCs that public opinion is not on their side on this issue, and we’ll be back in there tomorrow doing just that.
PS: You can follow us on Twitter for more up to the minute updates.
Our Head of Campaigns & Communications writes…
I have just been to see some colleagues who undertake covert investigations for us. That’s not hunt monitoring, but rather full scale investigations on various levels. We’d asked them to have a good look into the murky world of the terrier man – the men who accompany hunts, together with their terrier dogs, whose job it is to dig out a fox that goes to ground so that the hunt can continue its odd pastime. The odd thing about terrier men is the fact that they still go out with hunts, despite their favoured activity being highly illegal except under very strict circumstances.
Anyway. These investigators have uncovered some truly shocking images of the horrors inflicted on wildlife and on their own dogs by the terrier men. The images left me sickened and very, very angry.
We are meeting senior officials in coming weeks to discuss the terrier men and their nefarious activities, and we just hope that the officials have a strong stomach for the images we are going to show them.
This week’s note from Douglas Batchelor, Chief Executive.
One of the key issues in the seemingly never ending debate about the Hunting Act, is the balance to be drawn between a law restricting the actions of bloodsports enthusiasts and the wider public view that such bloodsports are cruel and barbaric and have no place in a modern society.
As a charity the League has a duty to spend its charitable funds in line with its charitable objects and for a charitable purpose. Because people find cruelty to animals distressing, actions which reduce animal suffering are regarded as being charitable.
The hunters are clearly conscious of the animal welfare issues that their bloodsports raise, and that is why they have long tried to argue that hunting with dogs is not cruel despite the evidence not being on their side. Post mortems of hunted animals have shown that death was as a result of bite wounds and or disembowelment. For larger animals death was usually as a result of a knife wound or shot at close range delivered only after a prolonged chase that significantly distressed the animal involved.
In a civilised society there is a natural tendency towards tolerance and an instinctive dislike of the ‘nanny state’ exercising too much control over individual citizens. The bloodsports enthusiasts feel that while others may not like their activity that does not give them the right to proscribe their bloodsports by law.
The question for those of us who argue that bloodsports should be proscribed by law, is why should we restrict the freedom of others to do things that we do not like? What is it that gives us that right?
It is an argument that the hunters and shooters hate, but it is nonetheless a very important one. Namely that people who abuse or are cruel to animals are themselves damaged and their sensitivities are coarsened by that cruelty and abuse. The actor Tony Robinson and our Vice-President Bill Oddie make precisely that point in our new film, launched yesterday. People who abuse do not always just limit their abuse to animals; they can also go on to abuse people and sometimes those closest to them. A culture of abuse and violence develops and becomes all embracing.
The hunting fraternity are in deep denial about the nature of the abuse that goes on within and around their bloodsport. The evidence is there for all to see if only they would look. The history of violence to those who oppose them, the assaults, the threats, the dumping of dead animals on doorsteps and all the rest of it are ample evidence of the abusive culture underlying hunting.
The abuse within hunting comes in many forms. Some of it is verbal, some of it is bullying and some of it is physical. There is a collective ‘groupthink’ about their rights to hunt that simply doesn’t see what is played out between the Masters and the Servants and the field and followers and the hunted animals. The ‘huntthink’ becomes a joint enterprise in denying the cruelty of their abuse between all participants. The only flaw they can see in the enterprise is the dead and bloodied bodies of their victims, and hence the oft made claim that they are only out for the ride, the kill isn’t really their thing and anyway they never see it, it is all over before they get there.
The hunts have a very odd relationship with the ‘terriermen’. Wearing camouflage, riding quad bikes carrying terriers in boxes, the terriermen now accompany most fox hunts. Apparently the supposedly nice and allegedly law abiding people who hunt don’t want to be directly associated with the actual activity of fox baiting that is the reality of terrierwork.
In a weird way it is as if the cruelty of the chase and the kill above ground are not troublesome to them as long as the field don’t get to the front and see it happening. It is like children who think that they are hiding by covering their eyes. If they don’t see it, it isn’t really happening.
The terriermen are both a problem and a problem solver for the hunts. Farmers traditionally let the hunts onto their land on the clear understanding that foxes would be killed. The hunts were always very inefficient killers of foxes and following the passage of the Hunting Act chasing and killing for sport is a crime so they really can’t offer an efficient fox killing service without putting forward the terriermen for that work.
The terriermen are people who get pleasure from pitting their dogs against foxes and badgers below ground. That is baiting. The fact that the vast majority of hunts have terriermen in tow says a lot about them. Interestingly, the terriermen usually do their work after the hunt and followers have left the scene. It is as if the hunt know what they might see if they stayed and they don’t want to see it.
The terriermen put their dogs into holes in the ground, with locator collars attached, in the sure and certain knowledge that the terriers will not back off if they find a fox or a badger in residence or simply in hiding from the hunt. The terriers are supposed to bark when they find but not to engage with the fox or badger. One look at a lot of the terriers will tell you that underground, ‘engagement’ is the reality of what often happens.
Anyone who has seen a Jack Russell meet other dogs knows what will happen and how difficult it can be to control them. Most postmen will tell you that their size does not deter the average terrier. The idea that below ground in the dark, the fox and terrier are just going to look at each other and bark is fanciful. The idea that a badger is just gong to turn tail when a terrier comes calling is just ridiculous. Terrierwork is fox and badger baiting for bloodsport and hunts are using it as the price to gain entry to land for their ‘sport’.
The fox and badger baiters are using the hunts as their entry ticket to land so that they can engage in their bloodsport of fox and badger baiting under the cover given to them by the hunts. The farmers, land owners and agents who allow the terrierwork are signing up to fox and badger baiting on their land.
Anyone who has seen the results of fox and badger baiting for both the fox or badger and the terriers would be horrified. The cruelty of dog fighting for sport was recognised and banned by law 175 years ago, yet dog on fox fights is the reality of modern fox hunting. Fox baiting for sport is animal abuse, it is that simple. Any hunt associated with fox baiting for sport, is involved in criminal abuse of dogs for bloodsport. The public in my view have every right and even a duty to proscribe such cruelty and abuse of animals for sport. Please do all you can to help the League to Keep Cruelty History.
Finally, this week saw the launch of our new website. Please take a look at www.league.org.uk and do let us have your feedback.
Yesterday marked the fifth anniversary of the Hunting Act coming into force. A great deal of preparation at the League paid off as we reaped a great deal of coverage across the media spectrum.
Of course, our success means the failure of the hunters and their mouthpiece, the Countryside Alliance. Several times yesterday they trotted out their spurious arguments that the Act doesn’t work (it does; hunters are criminals); there have been only 3 convictions (there have been almost 120); more foxes are being killed than before (no evidence of that); it is illiberal and a breach of civil liberties (a civil liberty to be cruel? Oh please); and that it was a class war.
The problem with their class war argument is that it fails to stack up, even more than their other arguments. The majority of people convicted under the Hunting Act are hare coursers and ‘lads with dogs’. They aren’t “toffs on horseback”. So if it was a class war, then it was a failure for us, surely? This utterly stumped one of the Alliance’s regional spokespeople in a radio interview last night.
Another spokesperson told us that we are townies. We’re based in rural Surrey; they’re in Central London. The League spokesman they were speaking to lives in the rural South West. They said we are “animal rights extremists”, despite that spokesman being a meat eater, keeping livestock and wearing leather. They are so stuck for arguments that they resort to this sort of desperate invective.
The press coverage was impressive, with two slots on the BBC’s Today programme, and key features in The Guardian, the Western Morning News, on various blogs and websites, and good coverage of League patron Paul McCartney backing the hunting ban. We did over thirty interviews over the course of the day, and our Celebrity Shock film was broadcast on a number of different news programmes and websites.
We know that the hunters are sore from the way in which their Chief Executive wrote in his weekly email that the League’s “contribution to the anniversary is an [sic] film advert featuring a handful of not very well known people watching a film that you cannot see”.
Hmm. Colin Baker, one of the most popular Dr Who actors ever – not very well known? Annette Crosbie, married to Victor Meldrew in one of Britain’s most successful sitcoms ever – not very well known? Bill Oddie, every child’s favourite nature presenter – not very well known? Peter Tatchell, human rights campaigner and new darling of the Daily Mail – not very well known? Gemma Atkinson, Hollyoaks star and stage actress – not very well known? Oh come on, last week Gemma only had to walk down the street (wearing one of our t-shirts, incidentally) to end up in the papers. The only thing that’s not very well known is why on earth these people continue to promote archaic activities where live animals are torn to shreds for fun.
Perhaps it’s just sour grapes because the best they can do for a celebrity is Clarissa ‘fat lady’ Dickson Wright and Otis ‘tortured for his beliefs’ Ferry.
Another fox being dragged from its home having been dug out by a terrier man. Disgusting.
League Against Cruel Sports 
You must be logged in to post a comment.