RESPONSES FROM

The Ashdown Forest Wildlife Protection Group

1. The Ashdown Forest in East Sussex is both a SSSI and an SPA. Despite these designations two fox hunts the "Old Surrey Burstow & West Kent" and the "Southdown & Eridge", are allowed on to the Forest to hunt. Neither is based on nor adjoining the Ashdown Forest. N.B. Hunting is one of the activities listed likely to cause damage to an SSSI.
   
   
2. The two hunts are of no importance to the local economy. In fact they are a drain on Forest resources in that they pay no fees unlike other riders and yet cause erosion to forest lands.Since they are not restricted to the Rides, as all other riders are, both these factors cause ill feeling and resentment.

In fact hunting on Ashdown Forest is positively detrimental to the rural economy. The forest was the source of inspiration for AA Milnes "Winnie the Pooh" stories and as a result attracts many visitors from outside the county and from overseas (totalling in excess of 1.25 million per annum). The Ashdown Forest Wildlife Protection Group has in the past obtained video evidence of the Old Surrey and Burstow hunt causing distress to children visiting Pooh Bridge and of a Master of that hunt making insulting remarks about Japanese visitors to the bridge and Ashdown Forest.

The two hunts, whose riders never exceed about 50 at any time, may be considered to be "outsiders" to this rural location; only a very small minority of their members can be considered local; their hunting range extends from the Thames estuary to the Sussex coast and probably encompasses some two thirds of Kent, Surrey and East Sussex and it is from this area that they draw their membership. They normally hunt on the Forest five times a year. The hunter’s seem to demand a police presence as a matter of habit whenever they hunt, be it on or off the Forest. It is not unknown for up to eight police vehicles, each containing four or five officers, and in some cases mounted police on horseback or trials motorcycles, to be in attendance throughout a day’s hunting. This avoidable expenditure on policing causes a drain on local resources and possibly contributes to inadequate police work elsewhere.

3. The economy would benefit. The Ashdown Forest Wildlife Protection Group has video evidence of damage caused to the land surface by the hunts infringing forest bylaws and violating the riding state and thus breaking the terms of their informal consent to hunt. The Board of Conservators is concerned at hunt followers driving and parking on forest land (mainly clay) and not remaining in designated car parks or on the highway. In addition, the Forest is Common land where Licensed leisure riding takes place therefore a ban on hunting with dogs would have no impact on the support industries such as stabling, farriers, riding equipment stockists etc.
   
   
4. A ban on hunting with dogs generally would be likely to lead to an increase in drag hunting as a leisure pursuit which is a far better spectator event, more associated with sport. Those farmers who ban "traditional" hunting would as a means of diversification and increasing farm income allow controlled drag hunting on their land and those hunters who ride for social reasons would continue their pastime. The majority of horse riders in this area are opposed to hunting with dogs but they would feel safe in taking children with them on drag hunts. A ban would see a rise in rural jobs and trade.( N.B. The Old Surrey Burstow and West Kent Kennels are used by the Mid Surrey Farmers Drag Hunt!)
   
   
5. The only animal hunted on Ashdown Forest is the fox, the Board of Conservators Policy clearly states ‘there is a considerable number of foxes on the forest’ inspite of there never having been a population survey by the Board of Conservators or any one else. A past master of the Southdown hunt publicly stated in the Sunday Observer that the fox population on the Forest is low. There is no agriculture on the Forest, save for some grazing of a small quantity of stock by 3 Commoners, who have suffered losses of sheep due entirely to being attacked by pet dogs. Demonstrating clearly that there is no justification for hunting the fox. The Forest’s Fallow Deer population is not hunted on Ashdown Forest, which raises the question of why control through hunting is necessary on Exmoor and the Quantocks. Here fox hunts disturb other wild life, such as deer causing road traffic accidents.

It has been argued that fox hunting is for the control of fox populations however hunt meet cards can be seen to be remarkably predictable in respect of the venues and timing of hunts year after year. Is the fox so predictable?

6. According to the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food the fox is not a pest. Consequently hunting is unnecessary. It is cruel and inefficient as our endeavours at monitoring the local hunts on and around the Forest has conclusively shown. For the despatching of the rare rogue animal of whatever species, shooting by an expert, as in Germany and other countries, and in the New Forest in Britain, is more humane and certain. It is a clinical operation, not an occasion for enjoyment.
   
   
7. A complete ban would be beneficial to the Forest and to all those who expect peace and tranquillity within its boundaries as promised in the 1974 Ashdown Forest Act. There is evidence to suggest that the pests such as rats, rabbits and slugs inhabiting the Forest and surrounding arable farms would benefit from the removal of natures best predator-the fox.
   
   
8. The most efficient way of protecting agricultural interests is through an improvement
in husbandry and a move away from industrial farming. On Ashdown Forest the deer are left to control their own population- an example that should be followed in the case of foxes. There are no hares, which are nationally in precipitous decline, and there is no evidence of mink. Mink should be controlled solely by trapping and shooting since using dogs would endanger other species and damage banks and margins. Mink are an alien species that should not be encouraged as a ‘sporting ‘ quarry.


9. Nationally and locally, hunters are an extremely small but vociferous minority, but the majority of country dwellers, as we have found from our experiences, are opposed to hunting with dogs. The decision of East Sussex County Council to ban hunting on its land is hugely popular. (N.B. The County Council although owners of the Forest have had their Policy thwarted by the Board of Conservators of Ashdown Forest). For visitors to the Forest and those who live on or near it, a ban would improve their social life. They would no longer have to fear for the lives of their pets, worry about startled horses or wonder if country walks will be marred (or worse) by hunts bearing down on them at the gallop. Their children will be spared the sight of hounds in full cry after one exhausted animal and, possibly, the digging out, and use of terriers on a fox after it has gone to ground.

The Ashdown Wildlife Protection Group has witnessed, on every occasion of a hunt both on and off the Forest, spades and terriers in the back of hunt followers’ vehicles and, additionally, can provide evidence on the blocking up of badger setts and fox holes prior to hunts taking place, and the digging out of fox earths to obtain a fox for release into the path of hounds.

If "culture" may be defined as "improvement of mental faculties; refined taste or judgement, high intellectual and aesthetic development" (Penguin Dictionary); then hunting with dogs is self -evidently its antithesis.

On Ashdown Forest the two hunts make tracks impassable, disrupt daily routine traffic and cause highway hold-ups with their large horseboxes, vehicles transporting hounds, followers’ vehicles and uncontrolled hounds running loose.

10. Hunting is of no importance.
    
    
11. There is no evidence on Ashdown Forest or in the surrounding countryside of hunts preserving habitats. The converse is true. (See answers 2,3 & 9 above). The hunts pay no fees towards the Forest upkeep, although in one case they make a paltry donation, even though the Board of Conservators is forever complaining of shortage of funds to manage the Forest.

In general, hunting can disperse nursing vixens (to the detriment of her cubs) this causes mating with secondary vixens that can result in an unnatural increase in family groups. Of what benefit is there in chasing a few foxes off the Forest, where there is no agriculture, onto surrounding farms?

The flora of the Ashdown Forest is very delicate, but the hunts blatantly ignore the "riding state" determined by the Conservators; fail to keep to bridleways and firebreaks to the detriment of paths, heather, Sundew (Drosera rotundiflora), Spring Gentian (Gentiana verna) and other rare plants and grasses.

12. A ban would be of unalloyed benefit. There would be an improvement in habitat, a more natural existence for foxes, greater road safety and the area would be of greater attraction to tourists through an undisturbed environment which the Board of Conservators, under the terms of Section 16 of The Ashdown Forest Act 1974, are charged "to conserve as a quiet and natural area of outstanding beauty".
    
    
13. The Ashdown Forest Wildlife Protection Group members have evidence of cruel and lingering deaths of foxes after carcasses of apparently young fit and healthy foxes obtained from local hunts have undergone veterinary post mortems. (Copy available on request). We have witnessed deer on the Forest being chased and frightened by foxhounds.
    
    
14. Shooting by an expert marksman-trained to do a job clinically and derive no pleasure from causing death- is by far the most humane method of putting to death a wild animal. It causes no widespread disruption as is shown by its practice in the New Forest and the Scottish highlands. The shooting itself can be made more certain if carried out at night when the quarry is brightly illuminated, or night vision equipment is used. Shooting at night, if necessary, also reduces the risks to the public.
    
    
15. A ban on hunting with dogs must be a total ban nation-wide. Because of the well-publicised threats by the Countryside Alliance to illegally break a ban, it is imperative that an efficient monitoring service be set up and carried out by central government. Furthermore the hunts current exemption from the recent hand gun legislation should be made enforceable on all hunt staff.
    
    
16. A ban must be enforceable in criminal law, applied nationally and across all types of land holding without exception.
    
    
17. The ban should be supported by the empowerment of the wildlife officers of all police forces to conduct inquiries, without the need for a warrant, on suspicion of infringement of the banning law.

The Ashdown Forest Wildlife Protection Group would like to express its disquiet that the verb ‘to cull’ has been used incorrectly throughout the paper listing the questions to be considered by the Committee of Inquiry. "Cull" is not a synonym for "kill"

Footnote:

The Ashdown Forest Wildlife Protection Group ~ Description & Aims

One of the reasons for the formation of the Ashdown Forest Wildlife Protection Group was to address the anomaly of the Board of Conservators of Ashdown Forest permitting hunting on land owned by East Sussex County Council which has a policy of prohibiting blood sports on land it owns and controls. East Sussex County Council purchased the Forest in 1989 [the policy predates the purchase by several years]. Oddly, the Board of Conservators who manage Ashdown Forest comprise among others the Chairman of the County Council and a large number of the other members are either serving County or District Councillors and Ex Councillors. The Board of Conservators has recently spent over £3000 to defend ITS POLICY –of continuing to allow the hunts on Ashdown Forest, [probably because a disproportionate number of Conservators publicly support the hunts and in particular one Conservator, Councillor Whetstone regularly hosts a meet at his home.]

As a result this matter has outraged the people of East Sussex. Last year a petition was mounted by Mid Downs Animal Action calling for a ban on hunting on Ashdown Forest to be implemented immediately. Although there were only three weeks before the County Council meeting nearly 3500 signatures were gathered .The County Council claims it is powerless to prevent the hunting from continuing and has done NOTHING, other than take steps to evade the issue. Every approach to the Board of Conservators has met with total intransigence, and the vast majority of letters sent to them have been ignored. It transpires that the Board is totally unaccountable to East Sussex County Council, the council taxpayers of East Sussex, the members of the public who donated toward the public purchase of the Forest, the electorate, etc, etc.

The Ashdown Forest Wildlife Protection Group have also recently started another petition to stop fox hunting on Ashdown Forest and so far over 5000 signatures have been collected from local residents. It is abundantly clear from our public contacts that hunting does not enhance rural life it is DEVISIVE. It also subjects many landowners to unwanted trespass and intimidation by those who hunt and their so-called ‘followers’.

The aims of the Ashdown Forest Wildlife Protection Group are as follows:

1. To campaign for the protection of all wildlife of Ashdown Forest.
2. To expose all forms of animal abuse and cruelty on the Ashdown Forest and to use all legal means to eliminate them.

THE ASHDOWN FOREST WILDLIFE PROTECTION GROUP

13 January 2000

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Date uploaded to site 4 May 2000