Recording hunts across Yorkshire and Humberside in 4K!

Protecting the Wild Equipment Fund #9: York Anti-Hunt League

The Protecting the Wild Equipment Fund was set up in Summer 2023 to help put ‘eyes in the field‘, empowering people to protect British wildlife. We use it to provide equipment like body cams, trail cams, night vision kit, and video cameras to monitors and activists working on the front line.

While we do approach groups ourselves, we were delighted to be contacted a few weeks ago by a small group of activists who do great work across Yorkshire and Humberside – the York Anti-Hunt League or YAHL.

YAHL not only keep an eye on raptor persecution and hare coursing, but keeps close tabs on several notorious hunts including the Sinnington Hunt, the Middleton Hunt, and the Bramham, Badsworth, York South Hunt (BBYS).

Bramham, Badsworth, York South Hunt. Image York Anti-Hunt League

On our page explaining why Easingwold Council should ban the hunt from parading on Boxing Day, we stated that during the 2022/23 season, YAHL caught the Badsworth, Bramham, York South Hunt involved in a number of questionable and outright criminal actions. For example, they reported that it caught the hunt’s hounds chasing a hare on 15 November 2022. The group said that:

“One hare was less than 70 meters from both the hounds and the huntsman, yet hounds were allowed to pursue the hare across two fields before any attempt was made to call the hounds back or go after them!”

And on BBYS’s 2023 New Year’s Day meet, the hunt lost control of its hounds as the pack began chasing deer. YAHL said the hounds even chased one deer down an active railway. Both these incidents reveal a hunt unable to control its own hounds while out in public.

More recently YAHL reported a conversation between their monitors and the BBYS which showed both how effective they are and why keeping pressure on the hunt is invaluable :

Clearly frustrated by the attention we give this hunt, Jemma Elliott Mendoza asked, ‘Why, when there are hunts all over the country killing, do we chose to do them? Well, there’s an admission for you, but with strong connections to those who hunt with the Middleton and Holderness, as well as other hunts, it’s always useful to get such confirmation from within the hunting community.

It is indeed!

York Anti-Hunt League asked us for a 4K video camera to replace a damaged camcorder they owned. We were able to do exactly that – and were very happy to do so:

“A big thank you to Protect the Wild for funding the replacement and upgrade of one of our water-damaged camcorders. These cameras are used every time we are out in the field monitoring various hunts in the Yorkshire and Humberside area, and are invaluable for gathering evidence of illegal hunting and other wildlife crimes.

This funding has been made possible by the caring wildlife supporters who subscribe to Protect the Wild’s Substack, so thank you to the subscribers too.“

• Find out more about York Anti-Hunt League on their Facebook page /yorkantihuntleague and on their X (formerly Twitter) feed YorkAntiHunt

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We’re working hard to raise the profile of the Protecting the Wild Equipment Fund so that more groups (and of course more wildlife) can benefit.

We are able to buy the equipment we give out because of paid subscriptions on Substack. While all our online content is free, any money we do receive from paid subscriptions is used to top up our Equipment Fund and to provide equipment to groups that need it. It’s a simple idea – but the best ideas usually are! If you’d like to know more we have explained it all in our post “What do we mean by “Empowering people to protect British wildlife“?

With your support we will be giving out many more pieces of equipment to groups over the coming months and years. And we will always keep you up to date with how your support is directly helping wildlife!

If you’re an individual or organisation working in the field and would like to apply to our fund please read our T&Cs here first and use the online application form on the same page.