The Secret Monitor: Quantock Staghounds followers wrecking SSSI with 4x4s

Hunt followers are wrecking tracks on the Quantocks SSSI - yet Natural England has given them even more access!

Damaging stories from inside hunting and shooting have been circulating for years. Both industries present a public face that aims to convince politicians and the public alike that everything they do is lawful or ‘sustainable’. The truth is very different, and much of what takes place is out sight. Supporters, clients and even the police seem happy to 'turn a blind eye’- but not everyone is looking the other way.

There is always someone watching, always someone listening. The Secret Monitor.

In the latest post of an occasional series, the Secret Monitor is back in the west of England talking with another local resident who is utterly fed up of the entitled behaviour of the Quantock Staghounds and their motorised followers…

The great British tradition of hunting deer with motorised vehicles.

Stag hunting has a long and bloody history in the United Kingdom. Confined to the west country now, it is perhaps the most abhorrent and depraved practice of the hunting community in the whole of the U.K. Even within hunting circles it has long been referred to as ‘a blood sport too far’. Pro-hunt individuals confess that it is the hunting communities’ Achilles heel. Imagine just how bad stag hunting has to be for even die-hard bloodsport enthusiasts to squirm when they think about it...Yet even this disgusting and cruel ‘hobby’ has its followers, and these days almost all of them follow the hunt - onto the Quantocks Site of Special Scientific Interest - from inside a vehicle…

I consider myself lucky to be a resident of a village on the Quantocks in West Somerset and to also have the time to regularly walk the hills. It might sound like an idyllic lifestyle, but the peace and tranquillity of this beautiful and (relatively for England) wild landscape is marred by the risk of encountering a stag hunt twice a week from the beginning of August to the end of April.

Sadly, the Southwest of England is the last bastion for those who enjoy a good stag hunt. The Hunting Act, has a few unfortunate caveats which allow deer hunting with dogs to carry on to this day. A pair of dogs can be used to flush out any deer that needs either rescuing or putting out of its misery due to injury. Deer can also be flushed to guns for the spurious claim of research and observation. However, none of these make allowance for the hours-long pursuit of a stag to be “brought to bay” which is the traditional sport by which a deer is cruelly chased until it is dead on its feet and shot at close range. None of this is legally allowed as a method of deer culling (it is unlawful to use a vehicle to drive deer unless there is no intention for them to be taken or killed) – yet the hunts claim this is one of the benefits of what they do. There are far more effective and humane ways to lower deer numbers when required - most local landowners and farmers employ a specially trained marksman to undertake this carefully.

So, where do the ‘motorised vehicles’ come in?

A hunt is particularly reliant on the income it makes from allowing paid followers to watch and feel part of the “sport”. Most followers these days are elderly, cowardly or incompetent riders. Their way of participating in a stag hunt is not to risk a riding accident or getting cold, it is to sit in a 4x4 with a picnic and a flask of their preferred tipple and follow the hunting with their binoculars at hand.

Exploiting free parking facilities

From the off, the hunt makes obnoxious use of the free parking facilities on the main road running across the top of the hills. One can often find a barrage of 4x4s, horse boxes, quad bikes and motorbikes occupying the limited spaces, which are then very tricky to negotiate should you have thought to drive up for a nice country walk on the Quantock Hills. Sadly, the overbearing presence of hunt-associated vehicles is not limited to the car parks. Most will go off-road onto the hills from these, Wilmot’s Pool and Crowcombe Park, or their other favoured entry points - the National Trust (yes) owned tracks from Staple Plain Car Park, Holford Dog Pound, or the Woodlands Hill lay-by.

Visitors to the Quantock Hills benefit from a large number of established tracks, from single track to double track, as well as a multitude of sheep or deer trails across the woods and the rights of “Open Access” to foot visitors. You can amble for miles up and down, in and out of the woodland, across the heathland tops with far-reaching vistas or down sheltered stream valleys (or ‘combes’ as they are known here).

The destruction of SSSIs by motorised hunt followers

Much of the Quantocks has been labelled a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) by Natural England because of the ecological importance of its heathlands. The area is largely fenced in to protect free-roaming sheep, ponies and cattle from wandering onto the surrounding busy roads, and there are many gates for access for emergency vehicles or permitted traffic including for forestry work and tending to livestock. Access from the main road across the top of the hills is largely open, due to the cattle grids at each end.

Vehicular access is, understandably, restricted due to the sensitivity of the landscape. You and I would cause outrage should we decide to attempt ‘green-laning’ here. On hunt days, though, a walker, leisure horse rider or cyclist, will quite possibly come across an ugly scene of rows of cars parked up along these tracks

Hunt followers position themselves on grassy banks, overlooking specific combes out of which they hope to see emerge a fleeing stag or herd, pursued by hounds and riders. These onlookers, often stand grouped outside their cars, looking defensively at passers-by. They will judge you by your outfit (good luck if you don’t clothes shop at Mole Valley Farmers!) or the look of puzzlement or distaste on your face. Walking past is as intimidating as coming across a group of drunk youths on a dark street corner. Direct comments to them about not being allowed on the hills will result in being presented with either a middle finger or a “go back to where you’re from”.

If deer appear, shouts of joy will go up, or shouts of direction to the hunt should the animals look to evade them. Worse still, is when they start yelling and honking their car horns in unison to turn back a stag who might seek to get through them and away from the hunters. When radio news indicates that the hunt has moved on to another location, these 4x4s will speed off as a long caravan of 10-20 vehicles, bumping over the tracks to a new position. You don’t have to imagine the damage that this heavy traffic causes to the tracks – just take a look at some of the examples of the deep tyre tracks and verge erosion in the photos attached.

Motorbikes and quads bikes rev off the tracks and across the rough ground to assist further. These smaller vehicles can often be seen careering about quite close to the riders and hounds as part of the flushing out and/or pursuit. They will also carry guns or replacement hounds should the first two get lost or tired, and go in to collect the body of any unfortunate victim of the hunt.

Who would have thought, that the supposed ”great British tradition” of stag hunting is now completely reliant on motorised vehicles?

Why does Natural England allow this?

The Quantocks are made up of parcels of land owned by a variety of individuals, organisations and landed gentry. These landowners have an agreement with Natural England regarding where hunt-associated vehicles are permitted to drive. One wonders what case has been made to Natural England for the purpose of these vehicles? It remains a mystery to me.

Until recently, a map of these routes was widely available and even endorsed by the police, as it is against the law to drive on protected land without permission. Unsurprisingly, these limits were constantly exceeded. However, years of reporting these Traffic Act contraventions to Avon and Somerset Police, as well as complaints to the Quantock AONB (now National Landscape), Natural England, and (one of the supposedly independent landowners) the National Trust, has led to absolutely no reduction in this practice.

And I nearly fell off my seat when I heard in January this year that not only had no action been taken against this traffic, but lo and behold, the permissible tracks have actually been extended.

Compare the maps below from 2019/2020 and 2023/2024 - 2024/2025. The extra access to the north of the SSSI is clear to see.

‘Friends’ of the Quantocks

Should one venture onto Facebook to the misleadingly named pro-hunt group Friends of the Quantocks (Open Group) and somehow have a post approved about vehicles on the hills – out will come all the local bullies to claim the right to enjoy the hills in that manner and that the drivers are no doubt ”tending to their sheep”.

Anyone daring to criticise such driving or the associated hunting (which is a banned topic on the group), is told they are a keyboard warrior, a “Karen” or city dweller with no understanding of the countryside. In their minds, unless you are born and bred here your opinion has no validity. Admins make no effort to put anyone right and make it clear that driving on the land is not welcome or beneficial for the protected landscape.

So, no help from the local groups claiming to be for preserving the landscape and biodiversity, no help from the national agency claiming as much and more, nor from the National Trust - and actual active complicity from the local police who turn a blind eye to this unlawful behaviour.

There is no doubt that if vehicle access to the ‘hunt’ was banned, this barbarism would stop quickly. Followers fund the hunt - if they couldn’t take part in the ‘chase’ they wouldn't bother turning up.

And don’t be in any doubt reading this post either: we locals, countryside dwellers, and even those who have stag hunted in the past, are sick and tired of the Quantock Staghounds and their followers. Not only have backs been turned on them but residents are actively taking to social media, national media and activism to ensure stag hunting in England becomes a thing of the past like bear baiting and slave ownership.

• You can help tackle stag hunting on the Quantock Hills. Email the AONB authority (quantockhills@somerset.gov.uk) and ask what they’re doing to ensure the stag hunts are hunting within the law (they're not). The same goes for the National Trust (enquiries@nationaltrust.org.uk) and Forestry England (customerrelations@forestryengland.uk). And write to Natural England (enquiries@naturalengland.org.uk) requesting an explanation why hunt followers have been given not less but more access to the Quantocks SSSI.

• Would you like to contribute to this occasional series and expose the hunts or shoots in your area? We will never publish an author's name or location but will verify the facts with you before posting. Please get in touch.

---

Without monitors and sabs we wouldn’t have articles like this exposing what is REALLY going on in the field. And those monitors and sabs need equipment to keep themselves safe and to record evidence of the crimes being committed in the name of hunting, shooting, and the badger cull.

That’s why we set up the Protect the Wild Equipment Fund. We are going to repeat something we have often said on posts like these: without our supporters there is no equipment fund and there is no kit to give out.

This is very much a joint effort between Protect the Wild and you. We are the conduit, we liaise with the groups, establish what they need, and work with them to get the kit out to them - but it’s YOU that helps us to fund everything.

Sabbing and monitoring - protecting wildlife from the people who want to harm animals - can be dangerous and exhausting. Hunts are losing support and being watched like never before though. So, thank you to the individuals and groups out on the front line - and thank you to every single one of you who are supporting them.