Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill

Dear John,

Don’t you just love it when a plan works? Seven years ago, the League in Scotland set itself the task of strengthening the loophole ridden fox hunting ban and “really banning fox hunting”.

Firstly, we established that the current ban wasn’t working by employing our crack field workers to film what the ten mounted hunts were up to in the Scottish countryside. That led to the Government asking a senior Law Lord to undertake a review of the Scottish fox hunting ban. He concluded that “traditional fox hunting” was still going on. Next, the Government began the long consultation process about what changes should be made to the legislation. The need for change was starkly illustrated by a member of the Jed Forest hunt being found guilty of illegal hunting because of League footage showing what they were up to. We knew the public was behind us when almost a thousand people joined our “For the Foxes” march and rally outside Parliament. There was then a two year delay while COVID ravaged through Scotland and Parliament was busy dealing with it.

But finally, on Friday 25 February, the day after the League handed the Environment Minister Màiri McAllan a petition signed by over 26,000 people the Government published a new Bill that we think will go a long way to “really banning hunting” in Scotland. As ever, there is a long way to go and the devil will be in the detail but we hope that with a fair wind behind it this Bill will finally bring an end to people encouraging packs of hounds to chase and kill foxes across the Scottish countryside.

We couldn’t have achieved this without your support and I want to thank you for all your efforts and contributions that have got us this far.

Thanks,

Robbie Marsland

Director of League Against Cruel Sports Scotland

PS: Please support our work with a donation which will help us to change the hearts and minds of decision-makers with the power to strengthen and create laws to protect animals from cruel sports.