http://blog.ifaw.org/2010/12/23/this-boxing-day-take-a-moment-to-help-protect-animals-from-cruelty/
As the trail hunts biggest day of the year approaches I’m asking you to join the International Fund for Animal Welfare’s No Return to Cruelty campaign and ensure that the ‘sport’ of hunting with dogs remains banned.
I am proud of IFAW’s many achievements over the years and as we near Boxing Day, the biggest day in the hunting calendar, I am drawn to reflect on the success of the hunt ban. IFAW fought long and hard for the Hunting Act 2004 which bans the chasing and killing of foxes, hares, deer and mink with dogs for so called ‘sport’. Our brave hunt monitors put up with violent attacks and abuse for years in order to show the truth behind hunting and what we found was evidence of foxes being disembowelled, deer being chased beyond the point of exhaustion and hares being caught in a live tug-of-war between two dogs. But don’t take my word for it. You can judge the cruelty of pre-ban hunting for yourself by viewing their footage www.ifaw.org/noreturntocreulty.
The hunt ban has been in place for over 5 years and during that time there has been an ever increasing stream of successful prosecutions. The latest figures show that there have been over 145 successful prosecutions under this landmark piece of legislation. In fact the Hunting Act has been used to obtain more convictions than other similar wildlife legislation such as the Badgers Act, the Deer Act and the Wild Mammals (Protection) Act.
That said, banning something does not mean that some people won’t break the law as is clear with the Theft Act (which has not stopped stealing) and claims by some hunters that they are breaking the law shows that the ban needs to be rigorously enforced.
It is hard to believe then that pro-hunt lobby are still desperately trying to legalise setting dogs on our wild mammals for sport. This is in spite of their own claims that hunting is more popular since the cruelty has been removed (the majority of hunts now state that they are following an artificial scent rather than a live fox).
Remarkably this Government has promised MPs the chance to decide whether they want to keep the ban on hunting with dogs. When this will be debated in Parliament is unclear and even the pro-hunt lobby are discouraging their supporters from pushing the Government to take action now. That is because they know most MPs would vote with the compassionate majority of the British public, 75% of whom want to see hunting banned.
The pro-hunt lobby are trying to buy time while they attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of politicians and the public by calling on MPs to replace the Hunting Act with a ‘Hunting Regulatory Authority’. Don’t be fooled into thinking a regulatory body will stop cruelty. Hunts were regulated before the ban and yet hundreds of animals suffered. This body would be funded by hunters and would not introduce any additional measures to curtail cruelty. It’s simply a smoke screen to fool people into thinking that cruelty can be removed from hunting. It can’t.
This Boxing Day I am asking you to visit www.ifaw.org/noreturntocruelty , take the action and share the video with your friends and family so they see the truth behind hunting.
– Robbie Marsland
