Time for Change Coalition Against Hunting backs campaign to end ‘trail’ hunting on our national parks
The Time for Change Coalition Against Hunting has thrown its weight behind a campaign calling on national parks to end so called ‘trail’ hunting, a discredited practice used as a smokescreen for illegal fox hunting.
The campaign is the brainchild of national wildlife charity the League Against Cruel Sports, which launched it in August this year with a series of events in cities across England and Wales.
The first stage of the campaign culminated at the end of November with representatives from the c30-strong coalition and the League personally handing in an open letter signed by around 13,00 people to the National Parks England head office in London. The letter urges it to protect its vital countryside and end trail hunting. A similar letter was given to the National Parks of Wales organisation.
Trail hunting sees hunts with packs of hounds routinely chasing and killing foxes, a practice that should have been outlawed with the introduction of the Hunting Act 2004, and which is banned on 10 of the 13 national parks in England and Wales
Three national parks – Dartmoor, Exmoor and the Peak District – have however refused to ban the practice of trail hunting, and allow hunts onto their land, with Exmoor granting a trail hunting licence to a hunt.
Dan Norris, Chairman of the League Against Cruel Sports, said: “We are grateful to those National Parks Authorities who have committed to protecting the land and wildlife in their care and who say trail hunting, which is so often a smokescreen for old fashioned illegal hunting, has no place in these precious rural areas.
“But there is more to be done. Our message to Exmoor, Dartmoor, the Peak District and to all the landowners who allow trail hunting on their land within the national parks of England and Wales, is clear: it’s time for change. Time to recognise that hunting hurts the countryside, it hurts the wildlife, and it hurts rural life. It’s time to stop hunting for good and to end trail hunting.”
The coalition is now backing the second stage of the campaign, which will see pressure put on these three remaining national parks to end trail or fox hunting for good.
One of the coalition members, Dominic Dyer from Born Free, said: “It is part of the National Parks’ vision to see wildlife flourishing, and this can hardly be the case if that same wildlife is hunted. That’s why today we’re asking that hunts are not allowed within the boundaries of all national parks in England and Wales.”