Press release by the League Against Cruel Sports:  Young foxes are being taken from the wild and kept in captivity so they can be hunted illegally, claims a charity, after an undercover investigation discovered 16 cubs in a barn linked to a high-profile hunt.

Covert video evidence taken by the League Against Cruel Sports reveals 16 fox cubs as young as three months incarcerated in a dark shed on land linked to the Middleton Foxhounds hunt, near Malton in North Yorkshire.

The video1, filmed as part of a League investigation in late May 2015, shows a shed fitted out to mimic a fox earth, and the cubs being visited by a Middleton Foxhounds employee2 to be fed on dead chickens and provided with dirty water in bowls. There were no vixens or adult foxes, which suggests the cubs were forcibly removed from their earths.

Dr Toni Shephard, Head of Policy and Research for the League Against Cruel Sports, said that the League had alerted the police who removed the foxes and arrested the hunt employee. The foxes, one of which died shortly after the rescue, are being kept at a secret location.

“This blows apart the argument that hunting is ‘wildlife management’. Why would people working for a hunt be keeping young foxes? The answer is simple but terrible – they capture foxes so there is always a ready supply of animals to be chased by the hunt. Put bluntly, these foxes were kidnapped for cruelty,” said Dr Shephard.

“We’re sure that there will be a denial that these captured foxes are linked to the local hunt, but the evidence is right there,” said Dr Shephard. “The other footage, the intelligence we have received and testimony from people who have been involved in hunts all show that raising foxes to be hunted was, and still is, a common practice among hunts.

“A vocal minority are trying to get the Hunting Act repealed, and one of their key arguments is that hunting with dogs is some form of ‘fox control’ service. Anyone seeing this footage can now see what a despicably false argument that is. Hunting with dogs is nothing to do with fox control. It is simply a cruel sport, nothing more – and now it is clear that it is even crueller than most people ever knew.”