That ‘hunting gene'

H&H hunting editor Catherine Austen highlights the need for positive, passionate spirit from hunting’s supporters as it looks to the future

- Catherine Austen

IT’S 15 years since that monumentally depressing week where we all went hunting on two very different days — one before the bringing into force of the Hunting Act 2004, and one after it. I remember the desperation of “just one more draw” as darkness fell on the last day of “proper” hunting, and then the grim, determined faces as we went trail-hunting in the new era. I’m not sure back then how many of us, despite everything we said publicly, thought we’d still be hunting now.

Well, we are. It’s certainly not the same and it never will be the same. We were doing something that we knew, and still do know, was right. Hunting — and the countryside management it brought with it — was the best form of control for the species we hunted and allowed balanced populations to flourish.

It was stopped by a shockingly bad law that was brought into force for disingenuous political reasons.