{"id":370424,"date":"2025-12-26T17:21:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T17:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/370424\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T17:21:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T17:21:09","slug":"boxing-day-trail-hunts-take-place-as-ban-looms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/370424\/","title":{"rendered":"Boxing Day trail hunts take place as ban looms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boxing Day trail hunts have taken place in East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, days after the government announced its plans to ban the sport.<\/p>\n

Fox hunting was made illegal 20 years ago, but the government now plans to also ban trail hunting<\/a>, where hounds follow a pre-laid scent instead of chasing a live animal. The intention is to replicate the pursuit of an animal, without the need to kill.<\/p>\n

Laurence Bradley, from the group Hull Wildlife Protectors, which was protesting at the Holderness Hunt, on Beverley Westwood earlier, said he thought the ban was “overdue”.<\/p>\n

Polly Portwin, from the Countryside Alliance, said the group would “fight tooth and nail” against the proposed law change.<\/p>\n

\"Gerrard<\/p>\n

Hunt master Gerrard Farmer says trail hunting helps people socialise [Jake Zuckerman\/ BBC]<\/p>\n

Gerrard Farmer, master of the Holderness Hunt, said: “There are no wild animals that are interfered with whatsoever. We go to great lengths to mitigate any issues that might come in front of us.”<\/p>\n

He added: “All these people on the horses today, they come out in the countryside to ride the horse and have some fun and socialise and get physical and mental well-being.<\/p>\n

“It’s a really important feature and it must not be just sideswiped.”<\/p>\n

Meetings also took place in Lincolnshire, in Coleby and Grange De Lings.<\/p>\n

The government announced its pledge to ban trail hunting on Monday as part of a new animal welfare strategy.<\/p>\n

Ms Portwin said Countryside Alliance wanted to find a way to “protect those jobs and homes for the hunt staff and protect our packs of hounds”.<\/p>\n

She added: “We’re resilient and we are determined to stay together as a community, which is so important for so many people living across Lincolnshire.”<\/p>\n

\"Laurence<\/p>\n

Laurence Bradley, from Hull Wildlife Protectors, was protesting at the hunt earlier [Jake Zuckerman\/ BBC]<\/p>\n

Baroness Hayman, the minister for animal welfare has previously shared concerns that trail hunting is being used as “a smokescreen”<\/a> for the hunting of wild animals, which she said was “not acceptable”.<\/p>\n

Mr Bradley agreed and claimed some hunt groups had “carried on as they have previously to the [fox hunting] ban”.<\/p>\n

Charlotte Smith, co-founder of Hull Wildlife Protectors, said: “For decades, hunts have operated under a smokescreen continuing to kill wildlife.<\/p>\n

“With this change, our immediate concern is for the hounds.<\/p>\n

“What we want hunts to do is to stop breeding them and to work with reputable rescues to rehome the dogs in their kennels.”<\/p>\n

The government has not given a time frame for the ban to come into effect, but said it is “committed” to banning the sport<\/a> and will “set out next steps in due course”.<\/p>\n

Listen to highlights from Hull and East Yorkshire<\/a> or Lincolnshire<\/a> on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North<\/a> or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Download the BBC News app from the App Store<\/a> for iPhone and iPad or Google Play<\/a> for Android devices<\/p>\n

More on this storyRelated internet links<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boxing Day trail hunts have taken place in East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, days after the government announced its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[33624,158467,703,49,48,158464,158466,158465,158463,158468,13356,82,19942,158469],"class_list":["post-370424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-ban","tag-beverley-westwood","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-countryside-alliance","tag-fox-hunting","tag-holderness-hunt","tag-hull-wildlife-protectors","tag-laurence-bradley","tag-lincolnshire","tag-sports","tag-the-government","tag-trail-hunting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}