National Trust to end trail hunting on its land
THE National Trust, which has properties across the Westcountry, will no longer issue licences for trail hunting on its land, the charity’s board of trustees has announced.
The move comes after a senior huntsman was convicted of telling people to use the sport as a “smokescreen” for illegal fox hunting, and a vote by National Trust members to halt it on the charity’s land.
The activity, in which a scent is laid for hounds and the hunt to follow, has been suspended on Trust land since November, 2020, following a police investigation into webinars by huntspeople discussing the practice.
Mark Hankinson, director of the Masters of Foxhounds Association, was in October found guilty at Westminster Magistrates’ Court of intentionally encouraging huntsmen to use legal trail hunting as “a sham and a fiction” for the unlawful chasing and killing of animals during the webinars.
The huntsman’s illicit advice was exposed after saboteurs leaked footage to police and the media of the online discussions.
Following the conviction, National Trust members ahead of the charity’s annual general meeting voted by 76,816 to 38,184 in favour of banning trail hunting on its land.
Those who proposed the motion on the ban stated “overwhelming evidence leads to the conclusion that ‘trail hunting’ is a cover for hunting with dogs”.
Hunting wild mammals with dogs was banned in England and Wales by the Hunting Act of 2004.
Harry Bowell, National Trust director of land and nature, said: “The board of trustees has carefully considered this issue. Its decision to issue no further licences for trail hunting is based on a wide range of considerations.
“These include, but are not limited to, a loss of trust and confidence in the MFHA, which governs trail hunting, the vote by National Trust members at our recent AGM, the considerable resources needed to facilitate trail hunting, and the reputational risk of this activity continuing on our land.”
The National Trust, an organisation with nearly six million members, looks after hundreds of thousands of acres of countryside across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The League Against Cruel Sports said it would continue to lobby other major landowners such as Forestry England, the Church of England, United Utilities, Crown Estates, national parks authorities, local councils and the Ministry of Defence to follow the lead of the National Trust and Natural Resources Wales.
A spokesperson from the Hunting Office, responsible for the administration of hunting nationally, said the decision was “hugely disappointing” and added: “The board’s decision to prevent a lawful and legitimate activity comes as a result of an engineered campaign by opponents of trail hunting to bully landowners into stopping a lawful activity carried out by the rural community.”
Tim Bonner, chief executive of the Countryside Alliance, said: “The charity claims to be ‘for everyone, for ever’, but by prohibiting a legal activity it has decided it is actually just for those who its board approves of.”