We're currently in a fight against time. We have just over 6 weeks to reach 100,000 signatures on our Forestry England petition and pressure them to permanently ban all hunting on FE land.
We have a huge opportunity to potentially end the New Forest Hunt who relies almost entirely on Forestry England land as well as limit access to multiple other hunts.
How can you help? (3 STEPS TO TAKE ACTION)
✍️: the petition: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/552017
☎️: 0300 067 4000
�: info@forestryengland.uk
Below is a template letter you can copy and paste to send to Forestry England and ask that they make their "trail hunting" suspensions permanent.
Dear Forestry England,
Following the revelations of leaked Hunting Officer webinars which showed senior hunt officials admitting to using trail hunting as a “smokescreen” for illegal fox hunting, it was good to see that Forestry England quite rightly suspended trail hunt licences. However, it is important to emphasise that whilst it might be the first-time hunting’s top brass have been caught admitting it to the world, the fact that trail hunting is a coverup for illegal hunting is nothing new. Since the 2004 Hunting Act was introduced, so-called “trail hunts” up and down the country have continued to use the farcical lie of trail laying as a means of covering up the deliberate and intentional killing of wild mammals.
Whilst of course I welcome the move by Forestry England to suspend trail hunt licences pending the outcome of the police investigation, it does seem that the decision has come many years too late. Time and time again evidence has been presented of hunts breaking the law and yet landowners have continued to hide behind the trail hunt lies. Only when confronted by insurmountable pressure from the public and mainstream media, following the leaked webinars, has Forestry England chosen to save face and make a decision that should have been made years earlier. It goes without saying that countless animals that could have otherwise been saved have died as a result of the continued allowance of trail hunts.
Even before the leaked footage of senior hunt officials was released, there existed an abundance of evidence that hunts previously licenced by all of the major landowners in this country have acted unlawfully. Indeed, two of the hunts previously given access to Forestry England land have been associated with convictions under the Hunting and Animal Welfare Acts. One only needs to look to accounts on the ground of monitors and hunt saboteurs to understand the sheer scale of illegal hunting in this country. As if this wasn’t enough, in the words of Mark Hankinson, Director of the Masters of Fox Hounds Association;
“I think the most important thing that we need to bear in mind is that if you’ve got saboteurs out with you in any shape or form we need to have clear visible plausible trail laying being done throughout the day”
Followed up by the words of former Master of the Old Surrey and Burstow Hunt–“ by collating evidence and having a good trail laying team it was vital that we had that, which would enable us then to be able to go and do what we all want to go and do. So this wasn’t about turning the Old Surrey, Burstow and West Kent into a trail laying pack, it was about giving us the support and protection that we needed.”
If it wasn’t clear before that trail hunting was a “smokescreen” for fox hunting, then it is now at the point beyond any reasonable doubt.
Forestry England has a decision to make. Forestry England can choose to turn the temporary suspensions into permanent ones and prevent any more so-called trail hunts from using their land and killing wildlife or they can reinstate the licences and continue to allow the “smokescreen” for illegal activity to take place. As a nation of animal lovers, we have a real opportunity to protect our wildlife and only a permanent ban will help secure a future free from the persecution and killing of wild mammals.
I trust you’ll make the right decision.
Yours Sincerely