Reward for catching British fox cub poachers

This video from Britain says about itself:

23 July 2013

Very soon (middle to late) in August, fox hunts up and down the country will be training their hounds to kill in one of the most hateful and disgusting parts of the hunting season; cub hunting.

Cub hunting is normally called autumn hunting … because the very idea of hunting baby animals with new hounds is abhorrent even to them.

They will send out the terrier ‘men’ to block known fox earths when the breeding vixen is out with her cubs during the night. On returning, the vixen and cubs, tired from the night before, will not be able to return to the safety of their home; that’s when the hounds are sent in to kill them.

They will ‘hold up’ a fox covert in order to scare any foxes – vixen, dog or cub back into the path of the oncoming pack of hounds. The pack of hounds are half trained, the term couple is used as the hunt will team up one new puppy with one experienced hound. The puppies attack and rip the fox cubs apart whilst the vixen/dog fox are either ripped apart by the experienced hounds, or manage to escape using themselves as decoys for the pack of hounds so that their young will be safe. Poachers know this and force the vixen/dog fox out of the covert and then turn the hounds back into the covert where the cubs are; the vixen/dog fox can only look on as their young are ripped to shreds unable to return and help them.

By Felicity Collier in Britain:

Charity offers £1k to catch barbaric fox cub hunters

Tuesday 25th July 2017

AN ANIMAL welfare charity is offering a £1,000 reward to anyone with information on “one of the hunting fraternity’s dirtiest secrets:” the illegal hunting of fox cubs.

The barbaric practice, involving live cubs being put among young hounds to train them to kill, continues despite a ban under 2004’s Hunting Act.

The League Against Cruel Sports charity asserted yesterday that there is evidence the practice continues, despite registered hunt groups’ denials.

Up to 10,000 fox cubs are killed annually, according to the charity, in a cub-hunting season between the end of August and October prior to the main hunts in November.

Meets usually take place out of public view in the early morning or late evening, the charity said, around woods on private land. Young and inexperienced hounds follow the scent of a cub and when the fox family is disturbed, frightened cubs may try to flee but are sent back into the cover of the trees by hunt members to be ripped apart by the dogs.

The charity is appealing for the public to be vigilant for signs of cub-hunting: hunt members may well be in civvies, claiming they are exercising hounds or out for a social.

Successful prosecutions have been rare, but in 2012 hunt master Johnny Greenall, son of the Baron of Daresbury, and Meynell & South Staffordshire Hunt worker Glen Morris were fined £3,250 between them by magistrates after campaigners secretly filmed them hunting cubs in October 2011.

League Against Cruel Sports CEO Eduardo Goncalves said: “Cub hunting is one of the hunting fraternity’s dirtiest secrets and one which I’m sure will come as a horrible shock to the majority of people unaware that this callous practice continues to take place.

“Even prior to the ban on hunting being enacted, hunts started to refer to the practice as ‘autumn hunting’ in a bid to mislead and cover up the gruesome truth of what is involved.”

Illegal cub hunting can be reported to the charity’s Animal Crimewatch line on 01483 361 108 or by emailing crimewatch@league.org.uk.