Hunting and shooting in the United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom hunting without qualification generally refers to hunting with hounds-normally fox hunting, beagling, stag (deer) hunting or minkhunting-whereas shooting is the shooting of game birds. What is called deer hunting elsewhere is deer stalking.

As of 2012^[update]game shooting and deer stalking are practised in the UK. Hunting with hounds in the traditional manner became illegal in 2002 in Scotland and 2005 in England and Wales, but continues on Northern Ireland. Since 2005 it has also been illegal in England and Wales to shoot flights or game birds while they are not in flight. Following a trail (similar to drag hunting) rather than a live quarry subsequently grew in importance. The British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) says that over a million people a year participate in shooting, including game shooting, clay shooting and target shooting.

Hunting has been practised in Britain since prehistoric times; it was a crucial activity of hunter-gatherer societies before the domestication of animals and the dawn of agriculture.

During the last ice age, humans and neanderthals hunted mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses by driving them over cliffs; evidence has been found at La Cotte de St Brelade on the island of Jersey.

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