For years the British have said, “It can’t happen here.”

But on Feb. 18, 2005, the criminalization of hunting with hounds became law in the United Kingdom.

It doesn’t matter that most Brits are against banning foxhunting. It doesn’t matter that 420,000-plus people–the largest public protest in English history–marched on London to oppose the ban almost three years ago. It doesn’t matter that horse and hound have been galloping across the English countryside for more than 700 years. It doesn’t matter that foxes will continue to be killed by farmers in a much more painful way.

In the end, emotion, ignorance and class prejudice buried all reasoned debate and scientific evidence, a triumph of sentimentality over science. Even the British government’s own findings refuted every argument against foxhunting. The report–commissioned by Prime Minister Tony Blair’s own administration–concluded that fox-hunting is a humane method of controlling the exploding fox population.

Still, it happened. So with heavy heart I went to England to see the last days and show our support for the hunting community.

I took a train from Heathrow Airport to London to meet with the Countryside Alliance. Passengers were reading newspapers, every one of which seemed to have a headline on the foxhunting ban. Passengers made comments like, “A big to-do about nothing,” or “The toffs are getting their just due,” or “It should have been stopped years ago,” and “It isn’t going to help the fox but sure will make the government happy.”

These were city people discussing the news, news that provoked little emotion or concern from them.

But in the countryside, jolly old England wasn’t too jolly. As the date neared, you could see the pain on the faces and in the eyes of country people. It was like a dark fog of despair hanging over rural England.

It sickened me, sending shivers down my spine.

During the week leading up to the ban, people hunted like there were no tomorrows, many hunting every day, anywhere there was a meet. Speakers before each meet tried to lift the spirits of hunters, telling them not to lie down and to keep fighting.

But Wednesday and Thursday, the last two legal hunting days, will never be forgotten. Every hunt had huge fields of riders and followers. It was a two-horse day for most hunts, hunting from morning well into darkness. Riders returned exhausted, exhilarated and depressed.

And on both days, even though the god of hunting had granted the hounds, horses and hunters good conditions and great sport, at the end of the day old and young could be seen openly weeping.

Dennis Green, from the Warwickshire, has hunted for more than 50 years. “It is the saddest day in my life,” he said.

He wasn’t alone. The great huntsman Capt. Ian Farquhar, MFH, Duke of Beaufort’s, told me he woke up the morning after the ban and just cried. No one seemed to understand how it could have happened in the country where hunting is most revered.

Teary To Angry

On Feb. 19, the first day of the ban, every pack in England hunted in protest. The Duke of Beaufort’s had more than 380 riders and a crowd close to 4,000.

The Warwickshire had about 330 riders and 2,000 supporters, and the Heythrop had at least 320 riders and a 1,000 supporters. More people hunted or followed on foot or in a car on that day than ever before in the history of England.

People who hadn’t hunted in 20 years rode horses. The young and the old came out in droves.

And the mood had changed overnight. People still got teary, but most were very angry.

For the first time, you could hear the rage in the speakers’ voices. Even the politicians who talked about repealing the unjust law never mentioned giving up, and every time a speaker promised, “We will continue to hunt,” the crowd roared.

But that message was always accompanied by, “We will try to stay within the law”–not surprising since rural people are law-biding citizens. It’s not their nature to break the law, even an unjust law.

Most hunts started with a drag line. They call it “trail hunting,” not drag hunting, because they don’t want to be confused with the British Drag Association. Some hunts just hacked hounds around the country with fieldmasters occasionally taking the riders off on a lark across the country and returning to the hounds.

A few hunts used only two hounds to hunt. Some had a person with a shotgun positioned on the opposite side of coverts to shoot the foxes, a procedure now ridiculously required.

It’s now against the law to use more than two hounds to hunt and flush quarry.

The Essex Staghounds hunted with only two hounds that day. Before the ban, a normal day, the pack would have included 40 to 60 hounds.

You can still use a pack to chase rabbits and rats, but it’s illegal to hunt hare or mice–or, of course, foxes, deer, mink or, squirrels–with more than two dogs of any breed. The law requires the quarry be flushed and shot, not chased.

Terriers can be used, one at a time, to flush foxes from earths on game farms where game birds are threatened, but they cannot be used by farmers to protect their livestock.

Animal rights groups have convinced the government that the gun is the most humane method to cull the fox population. This is despite the fact that the British Veterinary Association believes, “Hunting with hounds is the natural and most humane way of controlling the population of all four quarry species (fox, hare, deer and mink).”

A new study will soon be released in England confirming that shooting is far more likely to cause suffering because animals can be wounded and not killed. In Scotland, where chasing and killing with hounds was banned two years ago, the packs (there is no limit on the number of hounds in Scotland) flush fox. People are positioned to shoot them when they leave the covert. Several people have been mistakenly shot and killed in accidents.

But the new law does have its teeth. A police officer has only to “reasonably suspect you have taken part, are taking part in, or are about to take part in illegal hunting” to arrest you. Without a warrant, a policeman can then confiscate horses, vehicles, hounds and anything else he feels might be used to prove his case. If convicted, your property is forfeited, you can be fined up to $9,500, and you can go to prison.

In The Court Of Public Opinion

So what will happen? Hunting will con-tinue while masters and huntsmen try to stay within the law and explore every loophole. British foxhunters believe the courts will have difficulty proving the law was intentionally broken. And the police have stated that enforcing the hunting law would be difficult and is not a priority.

A chief constable said he prioritized it “right up there with setting off fireworks after 11 p.m.”

Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises once wrote: “A great man must be able to endure it when his fellow men act and live otherwise than he considers proper. He must free himself from the habit, just as soon as something does not please him, of calling the police.”

Nevertheless, the anti-hunting groups have said they’ll videotape hunts and demand they be prosecuted.

If, in the course of following a drag line, hounds switch to a live fox, as long as the huntsman didn’t intentionally cause it to happen, he would not be guilty of any violation. If he knows hounds are on a live fox, they should be stopped.

On the first day of the ban, 91 foxes were killed by either flushing them with two hounds or by being caught when hounds switched off the drag. No foxhunters were arrested.

The chance of this unjust law being overturned now lies with either the courts or with a change in government–unless public opinion against the ban gains momentum. Government elections begin in May, but, admittedly, success in the courts and the election of a new government are both long shots.

Abraham Lincoln once said: “Public opinion is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently he who molds public opinion goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions.”

The latest polls show 63 percent of British citizens oppose the ban, and the most recent media coverage has been overwhelmingly positive, exposing the hypocrisy and ignorance.

Yes, It Could Happen Here

So chasing the fox is now banned. But it’s OK to shoot them. Class prejudice and ignorance from a Labour government–bent on getting even for reasons hard for Americans to understand–has resulted in an insane, unjust law.

If you still don’t believe it can happen in the United States or Canada, consider that many of the same animal-rights groups behind the ban in England are alive and well here.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare gave Prime Minister Blair and his party millions to impose a ban. This organization is headquartered in Boston.
The leaders of both The Humane Society of the United States, (the richest animal-rights organization in the world) and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals are ecstatic over the ban. HSUS leaders have vowed to step up their quest to stop all U.S. hunting, trying to capitalize again on emotional responses, rather than animal-welfare considerations, to impose their views

I remember studying the hounds the day after the ban as the speeches continued. They stood around their huntsman’s horse, looking up into their huntsman’s eyes. Only a true foxhunter knows that look, when hounds are ready to hunt and gaze into their huntsman’s eyes, sometimes barking too.
It’s a look of longing, of excitement. It’s an invisible thread between animal and man. It’s a pleading look, saying, “Come on, boss, let’s go hunting.”

On the day the ban began, they had that look, but it was heartbreaking, even painful to see. They didn’t know the difference between yesterday, when hunting was legal, and today, when it was illegal. They don’t know why you can chase a rabbit but not a hare, a rat but not a mouse. They don’t understand why chasing is now cruel; it’s what they’ve always done; it’s nature’s way.

A hound’s reward is the chase. When they’re hunting, nothing else is more important–not food, water, mating, or even their huntsman’s love. It’s what they’ve been bred for, for hundreds of years, and now it’s over.

But don’t worry: it can’t happen here!

And The Banned Played On
Carla Hawkinson

The long mournful notes of a hunting horn pierced the midnight quiet of a dark black night, blowing “gone to ground” on the banks of the River Exe, on Exmoor, England.

From my bed in the White Horse Inn, on Feb. 18, I heard and felt the end of foxhunting as we know it and realized, at once, the depth of pain and sorrow expressed by the anonymous huntsman, whose epitaph to the hunt sounded across the moors, signaling the ban had become law.

A moment of silence followed, honoring the end of a way of life in the British countryside. I sighed, tears welling, feeling the collective despair of a generation of sportsmen and women.

Then, suddenly, out of the darkness, came the horn again–this time, blowing the impassioned message, known by all foxhunters through the centuries–“Gone away!!”

In that moment, all the great runs, by all the great hounds, the thundering hooves of horses long dead, and the passions of hunters long gone were summed up–the message of hope, determination and defiance was clear.

Foxhunting would survive.

My journey to become witness to this historic event began in 2002, when my friend, Patricia Bryant, of Wiltshire, England, and I decided to form “GoneAway Tours,” offering hunting adventures to Americans wishing to experience British foxhunting, and to the English hunters wanting to try American sport.

This trip, dubbed the “And the Banned Played On Tour,” filled immediately with nine members of the hunt of which I’m joint master, Tennessee Valley (Tenn.), and one member of the Bull Run Hunt (Va.)–Maribel Koella, Dene Masengill, Brownlow Marsh, Mary Sue Younger, Claire Poole, Lugene Askins, Nancy Hopping, Mark Mulhern, John Hawkinson, and me.

We came, as always, to experience the exhilaration that is hunting in Great Britain. Little compares to galloping across the English countryside, behind a great pack of hounds, on a horse suited to the country. As anyone who has been there can tell you, Exmoor, with its open moors and storybook landscape, is extra-special.

Our group went out with some of the great packs of Exmoor: the Devon and Somerset Staghounds, the Exmoor Foxhounds, the Minehead Harriers, and the Dulverton West. Our hirelings, provided by Ruth and Kevin Lamacraft of Knowle Manor, were the best we’d ever ridden.

So much of what we came to see hadn’t changed yet. The meets were held in the same places. The hounds waited in obedient anticipation as drinks and sandwiches were served in front of ancient homes and manor houses. The caps were paid, the welcomes made–but underlying all the formality was a bittersweet sadness. Could this really be the end of a way of life?

Feb. 19 dawned a crisp, sunny winter morning, and foxhunters across England awoke, pulled on their boots, and traveled to the meets as usual.
Our group chose to go out with the Avon Vale Hunt, in Wiltshire. Polished and scrubbed, on well turned-out hirelings, we arrived to show our support. Traffic jammed the narrow lanes to the meet at Monks Park, Neston, owned by James Fuller of Fuller’s Brewers, our host and fieldmaster for the day.

As agreed in advance, all 250 recognized English packs met in their respective territories for a massive show of force. The communities turned out in incredible numbers, to show the government that the countryside was nursing a growing rage at a government out of touch with its rural constituents. Estimates placed the total number of followers across England, mounted and on foot at 500,000 people.

At the Avon Vale meet, riders crowded close to hear speeches denouncing the ban. MFH Jonathon Seed described how a drag would be laid and emphasized that hounds would be hunting “within the law.” As hounds and staff set off in front of the manor house at Monks Park, the enormous crowd cheered and applauded the hunters.

But suddenly, all forward motion stopped. A group of “antis,” menacingly masked, blocked the lane. I later learned that the antis had sprayed the faces of the hounds with a liquid–presumably a bleach or ammonia mixture. Why they would do this to animals legally following a drag line, I have no clue. One also sprayed the face of a whipper-in’s horse and was arrested.

Police dispersed the antis and the hunt progressed onto the dragline. Hounds found and we were off, galloping countless stone walls and drop fences at speed.

Following a dragline is a little different than trailing a live fox. Without the typical starts and stops, it’s more like a steeplechase, and we
quickly lost much of the field. Foot followers lined the fields and lanes.

At a check, we fortified ourselves with some “liquid courage” or “jump reducer,” which, I soon discovered, would be much needed! I cannot tell you how many miles we galloped or how many stonewalls and tiger traps we jumped in an effort to stay with the hounds.

After a check at the conclusion of the third drag line, we hacked to the next covert, and I wondered if we might now be hunting live. Hounds began speaking in earnest in a wooded thicket. Suddenly the antis appeared once again, shouting and stomping about to foil the hounds. But they were ineffective and a fox was taken.

The master invited us forward and announced the fox had been legally killed. It was at that very moment I realized that foxhunting is not dead in England and that our British friends will not allow our shared traditions to be defeated by politics and hound-spraying thugs.

You see, the ban in England does not outlaw the killing of foxes, only the pursuit of foxes by more than two dogs. Should a pack, following a drag line, inadvertently kill a fox, the hunters are within the law.

At the conclusion of our hunt with the Avon Vale, we congratu-lated the master, and our day ended with a long hack back to the meet.

My traveling companions and I wish that country sportsmen and women worldwide will heed the call of the hunting horn and work to save our way of life, before it is truly “gone away.”