Endangered Exmoor's 2nd Stage Submission
to The Committee of Inquiry into Hunting with Dogs

May 2000
We have had very little time for the preparation of this second submission and have not been able to view all the first submissions on the internet of late due to the "love bug" computer virus, and as a consequence this submission does not always make specific reference to incorrect statements in other submissions but where we have been able to do so, we have.

Economy
Written representations from IFAW, the League Against Cruel Sports and the RSPCA have suggested that hunting makes only a minor contribution to the rural economy. This is not the case for Exmoor as is shown by the report carried out for the West Somerset District Council by Manley et al. This report shows that in the West Somerset part of Exmoor 414 full time equivalent jobs were directly dependant on hunting.

Exmoor has a fragile economy as is recognised by the inclusion of Exmoor within the area designated for Objective 2 European Structural Funding. Any ban on hunting on Exmoor would have a distastrous effect on an already fragile economy.

Fallen Stock
Various submissions from opponents of hunting have sought to nullify the service that hunt kennels provide in disposing of fallen stock, by stating that such a service can be provided by licensed knackermen. This is a fallacy, knackermen charge a fee for such services. Hunts charge little or nothing for collecting dead stock. Under the MAFF OTMS cull cow scheme farmers hae to pay £45 to have casualty cows sent to a MAFF appointed incineration unit, it costs the government £85 to have each cow incinerated. Therefore it currently costs £130 per cow and about £60 per calf to have cattle disposed of other than by hunt kennels.

Great significance is made of drag hound kennels being able to provide the same fallen stock service as live quarry kennels. On Exmoor there are 11 packs of hounds consisting of 3 packs of staghounds, 5 packs of foxhounds and 3 packs of beagles. Drag hunting needs a far larger area than live quarry hounds. A pack of drag hounds will register a country that includes anything from 4 to 16 packs of foxhounds (International Association of Masters of Bloodhounds). Thus, on Exmoor, at best only 2 drag hound packs would replace the 11 live quarry packs dealing with fallen stock collection at present. Add to this the fact that a drag hound pack has half the number of hounds than that of a fox or stag hound pack, and it is clear that there would be an insufficient number of hounds to consume the fallen stock from Exmoor farms.

The fallen stock service provided by Hunts on Exmoor is an extremely valuable one as is evidenced by the Minister of Agriculture's recommendation to dairy farmers at the end of the Calf Processing Scheme, that they should send all unwanted calves to their local foxhound kennels.

Drag Hunting
The RSPCA submission relies heavily on the premise that drag hunting will replace any jobs lost as a result of live quarry hunting. This is most certainly not the case on Exmoor. Research by Manley et al. (1999) concluded that:

In the event of a ban, only a mall number indicated that they would go drag hunting and most of these had no previous experience of the sport. As already cited, the majority of those that had experienced drag hunting had thought it less or much less enjoyable. This raises significant questions as to the likely sustainability of the sport to these potential new partitipants.

A large majority of armers within the surveys gave an effective or resounding no to permitting drag hunting on their land. In the event of a ban the proportion of farmers expecting to refuse access decreased only slightly.

The principle reason for Exmoor farmers going hunting is to see the running of the deer, just as it has been for generations of their forebears. They do not go hunting for the enjoyment of riding a horse across country (something that is borne out by the fact that so many farmers follow the hunt in a car or landrover), and therefore drag hunting is of no interest to them. If drag hunting were introduced here it is unlikely that it would be of interest to local farmers or land owners. Thre main attraction of drag hunting to people is that it provides a means of riding a horse at speed over fences. There is no jumping on Exmoor and therefore this, combined with the lack of enthusiasm from local farmers, means that it would not flourish, and therefore would no alleviate any of the detrimental consequences of a ban on hunting with dogs.

Drag hunting would not happen for the same reasons that large scale 'off-roading' of 4 wheel drive cars on private land does not happen. Farmers are not going to allow an activity to take places where the disadvantages outweigh the advantages so heavily.

Agriculture and Pest Control

Foxes
The RSPCA submission states:

The fox is not a significant pest nationally to agriculture or to wildlife and may help control other major agricultural and forestry pests. Where action is considered necessary, it should be targeted at individual animals and not directed at wider attempts to control the population.

Exmoor benefits from very large sums of money being brought into the area as a result of game bird shooting. There is a need for foxes to be controlled to ensure that there are an adequate number of game birds for the visitors who come to shoot on Exmoor. The RSPCA is wholly wrong to state that the fox is not significant pest. An example of the significance of the fox as a pest in economic terms can be seend by reference to the Miltons Shoot. The Miltons Shoot is a pheasant and partridge shoot on Exmoor which is visited by a number of paying guests from around the world. The control of foxes is of paramount importance to the well being of the shoot. If a fox got into one release pen on this shoot it could do up to £20,000 of damage. £20,000 being the cost of the pheasant poults in the pen. The extenuated damage that would result from such a loss is catastrophic. The complete destruction of birds in a release pen would mean that a number of days' shooting would have to be cancelled. A team of guns will pay an average of £12,000 for a day's shooting here. The wiping out of the main release pen would result in the cancellation of 8 days' shooting which equates to the loss of £96,000. By anyone's standards, this is a significant figure.

The RSPCA also states that where it is necessary to control foxes, individual animals should be targeted rather than the population as a whole. Hunting with hounds targets individual foxes in a way that no other form of control can because it is natural selection in practice. Invariably it is older, weaker foxes that take the softer target of farm livestock. Hounds catch these weaker foxes. Shooting or snaring is not so selective.

The RSPCA also state that foxes are not a significant pest to wildlife. Foxes pose a very significant threat to ground nesting birds as is evidenced by the RSPB carrying out fox control on its bird reserves. Exmoor has a strong population of ground nesting birds; it also has more packs of foxhounds per square kilometre than other areas of England. These two facts are not unrelated.

Deer
IFAW, RSPCA, LACS and Advocates for Animals all agree that deer need to be controlled. However, they have sought to mislead the Inquiry by totalling the population of all deer species in the U.K. and then applying that as a percentage to the number of deer killed by hunting to make deer hunting appear to be artificially insignificant to the overall cull. This is wrong. To assess the effect of deer hunting on population control regard should be had to the species that are hunted and where they are hunted, i.e. red eer on Exmoor and the surrounding areas. There are an estimated 3000 deer on Exmoor. The staghounds kill an average of 150 deer in a year. The recommended cull of a deer herd is 20% per annum. Thus, 600 deer need to be taken out each year, the staghounds therefore account for 25% of the cull.

It is very dangerous to make wildlife policy on a national basis without due regard to local issues and variances.

Some of the submissions of the opponents of hunting have stated that the damage done by deer to farmers' crops could be offset by the sale of venison. This is extremely naive. As with any commodity, he price of venison varies from year to year. Thus, if the price drops in order for a armer to ensure that he receives the same income from venison sales as the previous year, he would need to shoot more deer. As a result, a situation develops whereby the number of deer culled is determined by the price of venison and not by any rational culling programme.

MANAGEMENT AND CONERVATION OF WILDLIFE

Several of the respondents to the inquiry named above have stated that hunting does little or nothing to benefit habitat management and conservation. The importance of hunting to habitats and the landscape on Exmoor was officially recognised in Lord Porchester's report to the Secretary of State for the Environment and the Minister for Agriculture in 1977:

Stag hunting and fox hunting are both notable features to the Exmoor way of life. Whilst it may come as a surprise to some and prompt the wrath of others, it is undeniable that stag hunting on Exmoor operates as a force for conservation. The stagh hunt is supported by almost every member of the farming community and this guarantees the deer's continuing existence. In the normal run of things they can do considerable damage to crops, and without the active participation of the farmers in the hunts, their days would be numbered. Moreover, such is the local interest in stag hunting that substantial areas of land within the Critical Amenity area are corporately ownedd with a view to securing the deers' habitat. So long as stag hunting continues, it is unlikely that such land will be substanially altered by conversion or enclosure.

A submission by South West Deer Protection states that if hunting were banned then deer numbers should be managed as they are in Scotland by the formation of a Deer Commission for England. This overlooks the difference in land ownership between Scotland and Exmoor. The average farm size on Exmoor is 300 acres; in the Scottish highlands the average size is considerably greater than this with many Estates covering tens of thousands of acres. Deer ownership depends on whose land deer are on. Thus, on Exmoor, deer foraging can change ownership several times. In Scotland this is less likely and therefore management by consensus through the Red Deer Commission for Scotland ouht to be straightforward, it is not. Therefore, to suggest that the same system could work on Exmoor is foolish.

The Red Deer herds on Exmoor are widely regarded as the healthiest in Western Europe. This is because they are managed by hunting. Some submissions have stated that hunting seriously compromises the welfare of the deer. The strongest evidence against that is the red deer herd itself. The Exmoor herd is the strongest and most prevalent red deer herd in England.

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