Hunt Crime Report 2023-2024

Welcome to our third annual hunt crime report about wildlife offences and antisocial behaviour from members and followers of the Torrington Farmers Hunt, Stevenstone Hunt, Eggesford Hunt and Tiverton Stag Hounds, all of which operate in north Devon. The information comes from local people at home and on the road, delivery drivers, ex-hunters, landowners, farmers, businesses and hunt saboteurs.

We’ve included a table detailing the places hunt activity was reported through the season. You can use it to find out when hunters are likely to be in your area during the 2024-25 season. You might want to check our annual reports for the previous two seasons, 2021-22 and 2022-23, which also contain hunt dates and places.

Hunt crime report – North Devon

The CPS defines organised crime as planned and co-ordinated criminal behaviour and conduct by people working together on a continuing basis. That sounds a lot like hunts. It has been a crime to hunt wild mammals with a pack of dogs since the 2004 Hunting Act became law, but they do it anyway.

If they were gangs of burglars or child abusers it would be a different story because the law is clear and easy to implement. The Hunting Act is full of loopholes, enabling hunters to break the law and lie to cover their crimes. People in the countryside are furious and the police are frustrated. More than 9 million of us live in rural areas like north Devon and we deserve better than this.

Twice a week from autumn to early spring foxes, deer and hares are hunted and killed. They’re not alone. Chickens, an alpaca and forty five sheep were mauled to death by hunting hounds in Devon alone this season. The antisocial behaviour that goes hand in hand with hunt crime has an equally serious impact on people’s lives and wellbeing:

• Trespassing people’s gardens and farmland
• Breaking into nature reserves and wildlife sanctuaries
• Letting out-of-control hounds get lost, leaving them to be killed on roads and railways
• Threatening, assaulting, frightening, insulting, running over and riding horses at members of the public
• Causing serious road traffic hazards
• Mistreating their hounds
• Killing people’s pets and livestock
• Indoctrinating children into a life of crime
• Riding quad bikes illegally
• Stopping people from going about their business by blocking the way
• Stealing and smashing people’s property
• Conducting lethal car chases and crashing their quads, putting themselves and the public at risk

The list goes on.

Despite the dangers, Devon County Hunt Saboteurs calmly do everything they can to stop the killing. We can’t thank them enough. If you want to know the details behind what our local hunts gets up to, take a look at the DCHS YouTube account, Facebook page and website to see the truth for yourself.

This season we’ve heard about new groups of hunt saboteurs being formed across the UK, proving that more people than ever want to stop hunt crime and save the nation’s wildlife. You’ll find your nearest hunt sab group here on the Hunt Saboteurs Association website. The excellent Action Against Foxhunting also provides a wealth of useful information about hunt crime and how to deal with it on their website.

Highlights from the 2023-24 hunting season

This year more than 100 local people have reported hunt sightings, activities, locations and crimes to this Facebook page. Some of you have messaged the page numerous times with intel, photos and video, and it has been invaluable. You know who you are – and you’re brilliant. Thank you so much.

It has been an interesting season, with change clearly on the way. Here are the highlights of our 2023-2024 hunt-watch.

• We’ve seen the number of hunt riders plummet, leaving as few as 3-5 riders at many meets that used to attract tens
• Hunt antisocial behaviour has shot up, perhaps because the few remaining half-decent people who used to hunt have given up, leaving the dregs of humanity behind
• For the first time we’re hearing from farmers and other large landowners who don’t want hunting on their land and are fed up with hunt trespass
• We’re seeing hunts turn up several times in the same places. Maybe they’re being told to stay away from parts of their usual ‘hunting country’
• Some locations have had a very hard time this season, the King’s Nympton and Yarnscombe areas in particular, giving us another hint that fewer landowners want hunters on their land
• The Tiverton Stag Hounds made an unusual number of incursions into north Devon this season, perhaps because they too are being told to stay away from their usual haunts
• We’ve seen more hounds abandoned and killed on the roads than ever before
• Hound control is a growing issue as kennelmen leave or are told to go, and experienced replacements can’t be found
• We have found out just how bad the hunt fraternity’s infiltration into public life has become, with hunt supporters in position in everything from Parish Councils to the County Council
• We noticed local fox hunts not going out on their unusual Wednesdays and Saturdays towards the end of this season. Perhaps they wanted to avoid being spotted, reported, filmed, recorded, photographed and sabotaged. But it isn’t practical in the long term to vary hunting days without losing even more riders and followers
• We’ve realised how few people in towns and cities know about the UK’s twenty year hunting crimewave. They need to know
• Greenwashing continues in our region, with Clinton Devon Estates staff accompanying a hunt on their land towards the end of the season and numerous holiday homes, farm cottages, wedding venues and rural attractions getting into hunting once the tourists go home. Consumers deserve to know

Hunt locations by date

Here’s a list of reported hunt locations and dates from the 2023-24 season, a shocking indictment of the level of threat these criminals pose to our wildlife and to ordinary people. Because hunters are creatures of habit the list should help the law-abiding public protect their land, livestock, pets and children throughout the next hunting season. It should also help with road safety: once you know where hunts are likely to be hunting, you can drive with extra caution on our already-crazy roads.

Unless the Torrington Farmers Hunt, Stevenstone Hunt, Eggesford Hunt and Tiverton Stag Hounds cease to exist before autumn 2024, we’ll be back with another report at the end of the 2024-25 season – over 20 years since the Hunting Act 2004 became law.