Introduction

Introduction

Dear Exmoor Visitor

Every year those of us who live and work here welcome you to our villages, and to our unique countryside with its rich traditions and heritage. Many of you will have seen that hunting is at the heart of Exmoor and our way of life. If hunting were banned the Exmoor you see now would change forever.

A ban would place our jobs and our community under threat. Nearly 10% of the working population of Exmoor would lose their jobs! The local economy would be devastated and our way of life here would vanish.

In 1999 the West Somerset District Council undertook an independent study which examined the full extent of the damage that a ban on hunting would have on the Exmoor economy. The results confimed what those of us who live here have always known. Our thriving community would be irretrievably broken.

A handful of animal rights activists, invariably outsiders, with foreign money and interests, have been conducting a well funded campaign of vilification in both the local and national media against us. They seek to make us criminals. They wish to destroy what makes Exmoor so special to so many people. So far they have had a free run.

Now is the time for all who care about Exmoor to fight back. Those of us whose way of life is at stake have joined together to form Endangered Exmoor.

Endangered Exmoor will ensure that a wider audience learns the devastating facts about job losses and how a ban would ravage the whole fabric of our community. We are asking for your support so that those of us who live and work here can continue to preserve the Exmoor that you love. Thank you.

Livery Yard Manager and Hill Farmer's Wife
Chairman, Endangered Exmoor