September hunting news: Cattistock caught red-handed and more

Cubbing is in full swing again, plus the BHSA, and the Countryside Alliance

In this September hunting news update the shameful practice of cubbing, the cruel killing of young foxes to train hunting dogs, is in full swing, a harrier pack leaves the BHS, and the Countryside Alliance offers a 'reward' for hunting.

- The notorious Cattistock hunt brutally killed a fox on the grounds of Lady Charlotte Townshend's stately home. Townshend owns Abbotsbury Swannery, part of the Fleet and Chesil Nature Reserve. Action Against Foxhunting Dorset is calling for action.

- The Cottesmore Hunt was out cubbing too on 5 September. Northants Hunt Saboteurs have been disrupting more of the Cottesmore's Fundraising events.

- Herefordshire's Ross Harriers have walked out of the British Hound Sports Association. Find out why...

- Finally, the pro-hunt Countryside Alliance wants its new members to nominate a hunt group to receive £50. We ask, 'does the UK's privileged fox-hunting community really need handouts?'

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Cattistock Hunt caught red-handed killing a fox on Lady Charlotte Townshend's property

Drone footage taken by North Dorset Hunt Saboteurs' (NDHS) eye in the sky clearly shows the killing of a fox by the Cattistock's hounds just a stone's throw away from Melbury House. The landowner, Lady Charlotte Townshend, was the host for the Hunt's meet that day.

The distance between where the fox was killed and Lady Townshend's lavish home - via North Dorset Hunt Saboteurs

As the hunt got underway on 28 August, NDHS' drone captured the hounds picking up a scent and following a fox's line out of the woods into a circular patch of dense vegetation. Soon, huntsmen can be seen peering into the vegetation as the hounds try to penetrate it. Terriermen are seen arriving at the scene on a quad. Seconds later the fox appears on camera trying to make her escape, with the hounds in pursuit.

The footage shows a blatant violation of the 2004 Hunting Act, which bans the hunting of mammals with dogs.

Townshend is a former master of the Cattistock and a prominent hunting advocate. Shockingly, she was a patron of Dorset Wildlife Trust until she had to step down in 2013 after the public raised concerns about her connections to fox hunting and the badger cull. The Townshend family also own grouse moors in Cumbria.

Conflict of interest

Along with Melbury House, Lady Charlotte is also the owner of Abbotsbury Swannery, a popular tourist attraction in Dorset’s Chesil and Fleet Nature Reserve (see our listing of the Swannery on bloodbusiness.info). It hosts the world’s only managed colony of Mute Swans. The Nature Reserve is managed by The Swannery Trust, a charity in which Townshend and her husband James are both trustees.

James and Charlotte Townshend, courtesy of Two Counties Hunt Saboteurs - Somerset and Dorset

As Protect the Wild previously reported:

"Abbotsbury Swannery is understandably protective of the swans, prohibiting members of the public from bringing their dogs onto its land. This restriction is even applied to assistance dogs, which the Trust says is “due to the extremely sensitive nature of the site and the close proximity of visitors to a wild population of Mute Swans within the Nature Reserve”.

However, when it comes to the Cattistock Hunt, it’s apparently fine with The Swannery Trust for the Hunt to meet at the Swannery and hunt in the Nature Reserve. The Cattistock has been witnessed hunting with foxhounds within and adjacent to the Swannery where the hounds have been recorded in the reed beds where they could disturb the swans and other wildlife."

Action Against Foxhunting Dorset wrote on their Facebook page:

"We find it somewhat confusing that Lady Charlotte Townshend and her husband James Townshend are trustees of a charity that is responsible for the preservation of wildlife and conservation of a unique site of international importance. Why? Because they are both active members of the Cattistock Hunt which regularly hunts on the very land they are supposed to be protecting!"

The Cattistock Hunt's blatant killing of a fox cub on their land has shown once and for all that Charlotte and James Townshend are clearly not the right people to be in charge of a wildlife and conservation charity.

• Support Action Against Foxhunting Dorset’s Change.org petition to the Charity Commission calling on them to revoke the Swannery Trust's charitable status.

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Cottesmore Hunt and Pytchley with Woodland out cubbing

Northants Hunt Saboteurs (NHS) reported that the Cottesmore Hunt was out cubbing on 4 September. Meanwhile, sabs from NHS have been busy disrupting every single one of the Cottesmore's fundraising events.

Sam Jones searching a maize field for fox cubs, courtesy of Northants Hunt Sabs

NHS sabbed the Cottesmore when they were out hunting fox cubs during the first week of September. The group posted on Facebook:

"The criminal Cottesmore are being sabbed as we speak at their secretive little cub hunting meet in Sewstern!

With just two riders, Sam Jones who is facing charges of illegal hunting next Tuesday, is putting his hounds through maize fields in an attempt to find and kill young fox cubs.

This is not trail hunting, this is illegal fox hunting and Northants sabs are ready to stop it."

In fact, Cottesmore huntsman Sam Jones will be on trial twice in September. He's already due to appear in court on 9 September for hunting a wild mammal with dogs and is also on trial at Loughborough Magistrates Court on 17 and 18 September for interfering with a badger sett along with Cottesmore terrierman Max Logan. The pair are pleading not guilty.

It seems like Jones hasn't been put off by his upcoming court appearances. The Cottesmore was, however, overwhelmed by wildlife defenders on 4 September and sabs are at least certain that no fox cubs were killed that morning. The hunt packed up, disappointed, by 8.30am.

Two days later NHS were out again, this time making sure that fox cubs were safe from the Pytchley with Woodland Hunt. They wrote:

"This morning Northants sabs have given the Pytchley Hunt a damn good thrashing at their cub hunting meet in Sibbertoft, Northamptonshire. This was the moment when Huntsman Lewis Chutter realised his morning was ruined and was being mocked by sabs in front of his paying field riders"

Hitting them in the wallet

Northants Hunt Sabs have vowed to hold protests outside every single Cottesmore fundraising event as part of a wider campaign to shut them down. It's been a busy Summer, with creative, theatrical protests outside several hunt fundraisers. On 1 September, NHS were joined by Locals Against the Cottesmore Hunt in a demonstration against the hunt's so-called 'Fun Ride'. Protesters held a banner that read "'Cottesmore fun rides fund fox hunting". According to Northants Hunt Sabs:

"it was our job to make the point clear and continue to expose the Cottesmore Hunt on any level. This did upset some of those paying customers who dangerously sped in the gateway and lost their tempers with foul rants and finger gestures!"

Northants Hunt Sabs have been doing a great job at preventing the normalisation of the Cottesmore Hunt's violence. Protect the Wild will be following Sam Jones' upcoming court cases closely. However, we know that it's sabs and monitors - not the courts - who really protect our wildlife.

• Donate to Northants Hunt Saboteurs' fuel costs here

• Check out Protect the Wild's explainer page on the cruel practice of 'cubbing'

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Countryside Alliance allows new members to nominate a hunt to receive fifty quid

As the government gears up for a public consultation on banning trail hunting, pro-hunt advocates are getting ready for a fight. Countryside Alliance CEO Tim Bonner says that their new membership scheme is aimed at "encouraging more people to join the fight for hunting". In reality, the gimmick is part of a desperate membership drive by an organisation that has seen a major decline in support over the past five years.

Unfortunately for Bonner, public support for fox hunting is minimal. A recent YouGov poll showed that 79% of Britons want to maintain a fox hunting ban.

The pro-hunting and shooting Countryside Alliance (CA) paints itself as supporting education on rural ways of life. In fact, they are an integral organisation in advocating for and insuring hunt groups. Their pro-hunt rhetoric often fuels the right-wing push back against animal rights measures in parliament (see for example the recent parliamentary debate on driven grouse shooting)

The CA's latest gimmick allows new members to nominate a hunt to receive fifty quid from the Alliance.

The scheme shows just how closely intertwined the Alliance is with hunt groups. It also demonstrates that the CA doesn't care whether their support goes to hunts whose members have been convicted of multiple wildlife crimes: their scheme allows nominations for any hunt, regardless of whether they are demonstrably breaking the law or not. Also, the idea that hunts - which are supported by Britain's aristocratic landowning class - really need a £50 handout is also laughable.

Protect the Wild's Rob Pownall was scathing about the CA scheme. He said:

"That the Countryside Alliance is now resorting to handing hunts £50 for every new member shows just how far hunting has fallen. With support at an all-time low and hunts barely hanging on, it’s telling and frankly a little desperate that they’ve had to set up a scheme like this."

Sign our petition calling for a proper ban on hunting, and check out our proposal for a workable ban on the hunting of mammals with hounds.

• Read our Protectors of the Wild page on Foxes and the Law

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Herefordshire's Ross Harriers leave the British Hound Sports Association

Ross Harriers' huntsman Nick Valentine cited the British Hound Sports Association's (BHSA) draconian rules and expensive membership as reasons for the Harriers' decision.

He also claimed that a key reason for walking out of the BHSA was that they didn't want to be guilty by association for the behaviour of the likes of the notorious Blackmore and Sparkford Vale Hunt (BSV).

The news of the Harriers' defection was revealed in an exclusive report on the Hunt Saboteurs Association (HSA) website in early September.

Overly pricey

BHSA membership is pricey. According to the Hunt Saboteurs Association:

"It is certainly true that BHSA membership is a rip-off! Some of the posher ‘shire’ packs pay thousands of pounds in membership – and what do they get? The expensive and ineffective fiasco that is National Trail Hunting Day! This was a complete wash-out last year and – in a typical lack of judgement – the BHSA have announced they are going to waste more of their members money by doing it again this year!

We can also understand why some hunt groups might not be too keen to be associated with hunts like the BSV, which the BHSA are resolutely refusing to expel despite their blatant disregard for the Hunting Act and violence toward the public at large.

• The BSV grabbed national attention in December 2023 when Channel 4 screened shocking footage of the Hunt cornering and tearing up a fox in a residential house's garden at Pelsham Farm.

• Four of their members were convicted of Hunting Act offences earlier this year.

• On top of that, in March 2025, a member of the BSV was filmed threatening a council worker with a spade, while the hunt caused havoc on the road.

The BSV threatens members of the public on the road

In 2025, the Hound Sports Regulation Authority, the regulatory arm of the British Hound Sports Association, ruled that the BSV's behaviour should be put under "enhanced regulatory oversight" for the following 12 months. The panel "expressed concern" that the BSV's "standards fell short" of meeting the regulatory body's code of conduct. It also set specific conditions relating to communications with the public and the use of terriermen. However, it stopped short of suspending the Hunt, despite their obvious disrespect for the law.

Protect the Wild doesn't believe for one second that the Ross Harriers are only involved in lawful non-lethal hunting (although they are one of the few hunts that sab groups have monitored while actually trail hunting). Perhaps they have a different attitude to public relations, but maybe the likes of Valentine want to be a touch more tactful about their pursuit of foxes than the BSV and their ilk.

It's not like the widely publicised killing at Pelsham Farm was an isolated incident either. Earlier in 2023, three members of the West Norfolk Foxhounds were arrested and later convicted after they killed a fox in another residential garden.

In fact, during the 2023/24 hunting season, UK hunts were documented either chasing or killing at least 364 foxes in flagrant disregard of the Hunting Act. It's plain that the likes of the BSV and the West Norfolk Foxhounds don't give a damn about the law or what the public thinks. Any group remaining in the BHSA now, after the organisation's refusal to chuck out the BSV, is complicit in their behaviour.

• To read Protect the Wild's 'A Case for a Proper Ban on Hunting' report download the PDF here.

Fox image via Unsplash