Fox Hunting News
Hunt in Northern Ireland Charged In Court
The Iveagh Hunt Club in County Down—the south-easternmost county in Northern Ireland—has been charged along with several individuals at Lisburn Magistrates Court. The defendants are charged with two counts: allowing foxhounds to kill a cat and to attack a man. These charges are not made under England’s Hunting Act of 2004. That act does not apply in Northern Ireland. Charges were filed on November 25, 2020. The case will be heard on August 25, 2021, all as reported in the Irish News of July 21, 2021. Posted July 21, 2021
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MFHA Signs Up EQ Media for Communications
The Masters of Foxhounds Association of North America (MFHA) has engaged EQ Media to manage and execute the association’s communications. Based in Wellington, Florida, EQ Media describes itself as a “full service media agency with an equestrian focus.” “After completing the most recent strategic planning session, the board recognized even more fully the importance of committing to a broader, more comprehensive communications strategy,” said MFHA President Leslie Rhett Crosby (MFH of the Mooreland Hunt in Alabama). “EQ Media is the perfect partner to guide and move MFHA into the future.” EQ Media will promote MFHA’s activities, trumpet the association’s impressive but little-known conservation efforts, and its contributions to canine health research through its decade-long research project on tick-borne illnesses at the University of Iowa. Plans are also underway for a rebranding process, a new website, a retooled Covertside magazine, new affiliations and partnerships, and more robust communications. “Our team is ready to dig in and tell the MFHA story,” said Carrie Wirth, the marketing and communications veteran who founded EQ Media in 2016. The MFHA, established in 1907, is the governing body of organized mounted foxhunting in the U.S. and Canada. It has established requirements for hunt clubs and standards of sportsmanship necessary for registration and recognition under its jurisdiction. And it remains responsible for auditing member hunts’ adherence to the standards. The MFHA registers the hunting territories for all member hunts. In the event of conflict between hunts, the association attempts to provide mediation through its regional directors. One of the MFHA’s most vital responsibilities is the meticulous registration of all foxhounds in all member hunts and publication of a stud book and foxhound pedigrees—an absolute requirement for responsible maintenance and improvement of the breed. The not-for-profit MFHA maintains two foundations. Overall is the MFHA Foundation, providing financial support for several important programs as well as funds for the Hunt Staff Benefit Foundation. The MFHA Foundation supports the MFHA’s Professional Development Program, promotes conservation of open space and habitat, educates the public about foxhunting, and partners with the University of Iowa in canine tick-born disease research by providing data for statistical analysis. The Hunt Staff Benefit Foundation provides both short- and long-term monetary assistance to retired or injured professional huntsmen in need. Posted February 23, 2021
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Data Penetration: Russia, China, Now Hunt Sabs
High tech has been of immense benefit to foxhunters. With increased road traffic in every hunting country, staff equipped with two-way radios have been a boon to hound safety. GPS collars accurately locate hounds and often rescue those hung up in fences or otherwise disabled. Computers create foxhound pedigrees in microseconds, once a laborious pen-and-paper task. And then there’s the dark side. Hunt saboteurs across England are engaged in widespread breaching of private data on the web to target and endanger foxhunters by publicizing names, addresses, and contact data. According to the UK’s Daily Telegraph, police have contacted hundreds of members and supporters of the New Forest hunt in Hampshire to encourage them to improve the security of their individual data. Home addresses and contact details have been published online by anti-hunting groups who warn of further attacks. The Action Fraud Police are investigating data breaches of the Cottesmore hunt in the Shires. The Mendip Farmers hunt in Somerset has been breached as well. The police have sent letters urging hunts to review their online security, change passwords, and review privacy settings on all online accounts. Animal Rights groups admit to be planning prolonged attacks to publicize private data of foxhunters and their supporters. These actions surely pave the way to ultimately breach the online data of other targets in the sights of animal rights activists in addition to foxhunters: anglers, shooters, racing enthusiasts…eventually, even farmers. Posted January 28, 2021
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Margaret A. “Peggy” Poe (1932–2021)
Peggy Poe at Melvins 90th birthday celebration / Douglas Lees photo
Peggy Poe of Hume, Virginia, passed away peacefully on January 18, 2021. She was eighty-eight.
Peggy was best known for her unfailing hospitality, her devotion to her family, and her fifty-one year's marriage and partnership with legendary huntsman Melvin M. Poe.
Radnor Huntsman John Dean Dies Fighting Covid
Huntsman John Dean and the foxhounds of the Radnor Hunt / Jim Graham photo
John Howard Dean, III, huntsman of the Radnor Hunt (PA), died in Paoli Hospital on January 16, 2021. He was hospitalized fighting Covid-19 along with other issues over a period of weeks. According to the Masters’ announcement made the day following his death, John appeared at one point to be on the mend but his condition reversed.
Orange County Donates Hunt Property to Conservation Easement
Orange County Hounds Masters (l-r) Neil Morris and John Coles. (Malcom Matheson, MFH not shown) / Douglas Lees photo
The Orange County Hounds—founded in 1900 by sportsmen and women in Orange County, New York, and hunting country in The Plains, Virginia, since 1905—has donated the hunt’s seventy-one-acre property to permanent conservation easement. By so doing, the hunt—many members having long been active proponents for open space conservation—relinquishes in perpetuity the right to subdivide its acreage.
In short, the hunt practices what it preaches.
Bronze Age Humans Domesticated Foxes, Scientists Say
Fox painting by Beth Carlson
The Iberian Peninsula comprises that territory at the southwest corner of Europe, consisting mostly of Spain and Portugal, a sliver of France, and at its southernmost tip, the British territory of Gibraltar. In the northeast of that huge peninsula, between the third and second millennium BC, a widespread funeral practice of burying animals with humans was discovered. At two excavation sites of Early to Middle Bronze Age tombs, four foxes and a large number of dogs were found together with their dead humans in large burial silos.
Virtual Hound Show Delayed by Success
In a press release dated July 10, 2020, the organizers of the international Virtual Hound Show (iVHS) announce that the start of the (iVHS) has been delayed until July 31, 2020 due to the “unprecedented support from the International Hunting community.” Entries have been received from more than 250 hunts from seven countries, and the uploading of images and entries—a vast amount of data—has been the cause of the two-week delay.
MFHA Cancels Spring Events
MFHA President Tony Leahy has prudently announced the cancellation of several popular spring events due to the world-wide Covid-19 pandemic.
Canceled are the Virginia Foxhound Show; the National Horn Blowing Championships; the Ian Milne Huntsman’s Award presentation; the Professional Development Program graduation ceremony for the class of 2019/2020; and the ceremony for those huntsmen selected to be inducted into the Huntsmen's Room at the Museum of Hounds and Hunting this year—all previously scheduled over the Memorial Day weekend.
UK Huntsman Not Guilty; Antis Push to Stiffen the Law
Peter Mark Doggrell, huntsman of the Blackmore and Sparkford Vale (UK), was found not guilty of contravening the Hunting Act of 2004 by hunting a fox with hounds. The case was heard at Taunton Magistrates Court on Tuesday, January 21, 2020.
Video evidence by three different cameramen was played in the court by the prosecution, and appeared to show hounds in cry before entering the churchyard of Church of St Peter and St Paul in Charlton Horethorne, near Wincanton and Sherborne, on Saturday, February 23, 2019. The footage also appeared to show a fox running through the churchyard.
