Hunting booms a year after fox ban

As they have done for centuries, the men and women of the Beaufort Hunt will ride out this week for the first meeting of the new season.

Resplendent in royal blue jackets, riders will gather at the Badminton estate in Gloucestershire, and the open parklands will once again ring with the call of the hunting horn and the baying of foxhounds in full pursuit.

One year after the ban on hunting with dogs started to bite, a new poll has shown that since the Hunting Act became law, many hunts have actually increased their membership - and two new hound packs have even been created.

According to the survey carried out by the Countryside Alliance, which campaigned against the ban, 34 per cent of packs consulted reported an increase in subscribers, while 90 per cent reported the same or higher levels of support.

At the Beaufort Hunt, morale is high, said Ian Farquhar, joint master of the hunt. "People are absolutely determined to keep going. Like most hunts, we've got more people supporting us than we've ever had."

In the angry public debate before the act was passed in 2004, pro-hunting activists warned that the legislation would lead to a rural apocalypse: thousands would lose their jobs, horses would be slaughtered, and hundreds of foxhounds would be culled, snuffing out bloodlines dating back centuries.

Two years later, there is little evidence to support such claims: the hound packs are intact and, according to the Countryside Alliance, the loss of hunting-related jobs has been "marginal".

Most of the 185 hunts in England and Wales have switched to trail-hunting, in which hounds follow a lure doused in fox urine; but around 50 use hounds to flush foxes from cover to be killed by birds of prey.

Both practices are legal under the act, but the widespread adoption of trail-hunting proves that it is possible to enjoy country sports without cruelty, said Becky Hawkes, a spokeswoman for the RSPCA.

Under the law, hunts are obliged to notify the police of any "accidental" fox kills, but supporters concede that not all such incidents are reported. Police have been hard-pressed to monitor hunts across open countryside, and so far the only successful prosecution under the act was the result of a private action brought by the League Against Cruel Sports.

The league's chief executive, Douglas Batchelor, said: "We've always argued that when you take the cruelty out of hunting, more people would want to join in. But we're concerned that too many in the hunting fraternity want to move the clock back to a time when wildlife could still be chased and killed by dogs for sport."

Many admit that they see trail-hunting as a temporary alternative while they campaign to roll back the law. Otis Ferry, master of the South Shropshire Hunt, and son of the rock star Bryan Ferry, said: "Trail-hunting is like having sex with a condom. It's not the real thing."

Ferry has become a figurehead for pro-hunting activists intent on reversing the ban.

Earlier this year, the Countryside Alliance mounted a legal challenge to the bill on human rights grounds, arguing that the legislation threatened the livelihoods of thousands of people who work in hunting, and that hunters' right to peaceful assembly and freedom of association had been infringed. That argument was rejected in June by the Court of Appeal, partly on the grounds that hunts could continue to meet as long as they did not kill foxes.

Country Alliance spokesman Tim Bonner conceded that the human rights argument was weakened by the continuing survival of the hunts, despite the ban.

"We have been concentrating on maintaining the infrastructure of the hunts, so that when there is a repeal there will still be packs to hunt with. [But] success at keeping the hunts together has played against us. It makes the human rights case more difficult to argue."

Hunt supporters have pledged to take their legal challenge as far as the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, but most now pin their hopes for a repeal on a change of government.

David Cameron has promised that a Conservative Government would allow a free vote on fox-hunting, which could lead to the ban being lifted.

Checking the numbers

* Pro-hunting activists claim that the ban has led to fox culls using snares, gas, shooting and poison.

* A Countryside Alliance poll showed that 36 per cent of hunts report seeing fewer foxes and hares since the ban.

* New Bristol University shows that there has been no change in the fox population since the ban. Its two-year nationwide study, to be published early next year, shows the number of adult foxes has remained stable at around 250,000.

* About 425,000 cubs are born each year, and the same number are trapped, shot, or killed by disease or cars, the university says.

* Hunting with hounds accounted for just 20,000 kills every year.

- INDEPENDENT