Atherstone Hunt
The Atherstone Hunt is a United Kingdom foxhound pack, with a hunting area of around 400 square miles (1,000 km2) within Warwickshire, Leicestershire and Staffordshire.
The Atherstone was established in 1815 in Witherley, and known as the Atherstone hounds. Between 1930 and 1950 the hunt was divided into North and South countries, but these were then reunited.
Although "hunting wild mammals with a dog" was made unlawful in England and Wales by the Hunting Act 2004, which came into effect in 2005, a number of exemptions stated in Schedule 1 of the 2004 Act permit some previously unusual forms of hunting wild mammals with dogs to continue, such as "hunting... for the purpose of enabling a bird of prey to hunt the wild mammal". The Atherstone have appeared in the national press for alleged illegal hunting and violent and anti-social conduct from their supporters.
The police investigated the Atherstone Hunt following video evidence of hounds chasing and killing a fox near Grendon, Warwickshire on 14th November 2015, which was taken by local animal rights activists of the West Midlands Hunt Saboteurs.The video footage shows the dogs chase a fox across a field. As the hounds tear into the fox with their teeth, a member of the hunt reaches down and pulls the lifeless body of the animal from underneath the pack and slings it over the front of a colleague’s horse.
Atherstone Hunt states it had been ‘hunting within the law’ when the fox came across their path and the hounds 'instinctively' chased down the prey and killed it. However this explanation, if accepted and generally adopted, would effectively have neutralised the Hunting Act and legalised fox hunting, as the same argument could be used on each and every future occasion. On 28th November, hunt protesters were with the Atherstone Hunt at Sheepy Magna where they filmed the hunt draw and 'put up' a fox, and a huntsman put the hounds on the fox's scent line. During this activity, the protestors claimed that some hunt supporters had assaulted them, while the supporters were trying to help foxes get away safely from the hunt's allegedly illegal activities.
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