New Forest Bloodhounds relieved to escape trail hunting ban

As Boxing Day hunt meetings take place across the country, a Hampshire group said it is relieved to be excluded from plans to tighten the hunting ban.

Labour introduced a ban on fox hunting 20 years ago and its 2024 manifesto included a pledge to extend the current legislation to include trail hunting. Earlier this week the government announced it would do that as part of its animal welfare strategy.

Bloodhounds escape the ban because they are not involved in trail hunting. They hunt the “clean boot”, chasing the runners they mingle with before they set off.

“We have worked very hard to be totally open and clear on what we do,” said Will Day, the joint master of New Forest Bloodhounds.

“All our meets and information about the routes is on our website,” he added.

“The bloodhound doesn’t harm other animals. It has been trained and bred to hunt humans over hundreds of years.

“They are tenacious hounds that are determined to hunt only ‘their humans’. They ignore all other scents, even other humans.”

The Labour MP for Poole, Neil Duncan-Jordan, has been campaigning for the hunting ban to be tightened and hopes to table his private members bill in February.

But he said the New Forest Bloodhounds and other groups like it were not in his sights.

“I think those clean boot hunts offer that way forward,” he said. “They’re not going to be affected by any change in the law. They’ve decided to change.

“They’ve decided that the law is the law. You shouldn’t any more be able to hunt foxes and therefore they’ve found a suitable and legal alternative and I think more power to their elbow.”

According to the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs the Animal Welfare Strategy sets out how the government will protect wildlife by banning trail hunting amidst concerns it was being used as a “smokescreen for hunting”.

The League Against Cruel Sports said the number of foxes seen being chased, trespass, and other behaviour outlawed by the Hunting Ban have all increased.

Emma Slawinski, the League’s CEO, said: “While we applaud the government’s commitment to consult on trail hunting, ministers need to go further and close the many loopholes in the law that make prosecuting illegal hunting so difficult for the police and courts – to properly end hunting for good.”

The Countryside Alliance, which campaigns to maintain trail hunting with hounds, described the government’s animal welfare strategy as “little more than virtue signalling that in some areas will do more harm than good”.