Monstrous footage of fox cubs supposedly being thrown into a kennel full of hunting dogs has emerged online.
The disgusting video shows a cruel huntsman take two small cubs from a crate before taking them to the hounds, in order to train the beasts to hunt foxes.
This hideous act of alleged animal cruelty was recorded by hidden cameras at the South Herefordshire Hunt kennels and shows a man carrying foxes to an iron shed where it’s believed the dogs are kept.
The sound of the howling and excited barking from the shed can be heard, then the man reappears carrying what appears to be a dead fox which he callously chucks into a bin.
The Hunt Investigations Team who shot the video on May 27 this year also retrieved the bodies of the foxes as further evidence.
A spokeswoman for the team said:
They don’t naturally hunt foxes. They have to be taught to recognise foxes as prey and not only to hunt them but also to kill them. We believe this evidence shows fox cubs were actually thrown to the hounds because the bodies came out.
When our investigators took those fox cubs out, one of them was disemboweled, one of them had multiple bite wounds. Our feeling is that they were fed live to the hounds.
West Mercia Police confirmed that two men and a woman had been arrested and bailed on suspicion of animal cruelty last week.
The hunt’s kennels, in Wormelow, Herefordshire, have been closed while an investigation is carried out, and a huntsman is believed to have been suspended.
The Masters of Foxhounds Association said an independent inquiry, led by former Court of Appeal judge Sir John Chadwick, would take place into ‘conduct which suggests breaches of the association’s rules’.
The League Against Cruel Sports and the Hunt Investigation Team have said they’re growing concerned about people supporting illegal hunting.
They claim that hounds are still being trained in ‘cubbing’ – a training regime that teaches dogs to attack and kill fox cubs.
Hunting foxes with a pack of dogs was made illegal back in 2005 but unintentional kills aren’t banned, so it’s claimed that some hunts deliberately engineer ‘accidents’.
Eduardo Goncalves, Chief executive of the League Against Cruel Sports, said:
The hounds won’t naturally kill foxes so they must be taught to do so and this footage exposes the gruesome training secrets of hunts in the UK.
Meanwhile, Countryside Alliance chief executive Tim Bonner has said that if the foxes really were fed to the dogs that this behaviour has no place in hunting.
More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.
Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.
He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.