Fox hunting is an activity involving the tracking, chase and, if caught, the killing of a fox, normally a red fox, by trained foxhounds or other scent hounds. A group of unarmed followers, led by a "master of foxhounds", follow the hounds on foot or on horseback.
The Countryside Alliance (CA) is a British organisation promoting issues relating to the countryside such as farming, rural services, small businesses and field sports, aiming to "Give Rural Britain a voice".
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) is a charity operating in England and Wales which promotes animal welfare. The RSPCA is funded primarily by voluntary donations. Founded in 1824, it is the oldest and largest animal welfare organisation in the world, and is one of the largest charities in the UK. The organisation also does international outreach work across Europe, Africa and Asia.
Coursing by humans is the pursuit of game or other animals by dogs—chiefly greyhounds and other sighthounds—catching their prey by speed, running by sight, but not by scent. Coursing was a common hunting technique, practised by the nobility, the landed and wealthy, as well as by commoners with sighthounds and lurchers. In its oldest recorded form in the Western world, as described by Arrian—it was a sport practised by all levels of society, and it remained the case until Carolingian period forest law appropriated hunting grounds, or commons, for the king, the nobility, and other landowners. It then became a formalised competition, specifically on hare in Britain, practised under rules, the Laws of the Leash'.
A lurcher is a crossbred dog resulting from mating a greyhound or other sighthound with a dog of another type such as a herding dog or a terrier. The lurcher is not a "breed," but is a generic descriptor of a group of varying dogs. It was for hundreds of years strongly associated with poaching; in modern times, it is kept as a hunting dog or companion dog.
The Hunting Act 2004 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which bans the hunting of most wild mammals with dogs in England and Wales, subject to some strictly limited exemptions; the Act does not cover the use of dogs in the process of flushing out an unidentified wild mammal, nor does it affect drag hunting, where hounds are trained to follow an artificial scent.
Hare coursing is the pursuit of hares with greyhounds and other sighthounds, which chase the hare by sight, not by scent.
Hunt sabotage is the direct action that animal rights activists and animal liberation activists undertake to interfere with hunting activity.
Legislation on hunting with dogs is in place in many countries around the world. Legislation may regulate, or in some cases prohibit the use of dogs to hunt or flush wild animal species.
Opposition to hunting is espoused by people or groups who object to the practice of hunting, often seeking anti-hunting legislation and sometimes taking on acts of civil disobedience, such as hunt sabotage. Anti-hunting laws, such as the English Hunting Act 2004, are generally distinguishable from conservation legislation like the American Marine Mammal Protection Act by whether they seek to reduce or prevent hunting for perceived cruelty-related reasons or to regulate hunting for conservation, although the boundaries of distinction are sometimes blurred in specific laws, for example when endangered animals are hunted.
Sir Charles Mortimer Tollemache Smith-Ryland KCVO was Lord Lieutenant of Warwickshire from 1968 to 1989.
The Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act was an Act of the Scottish Parliament passed in February 2002, making Scotland the first part of the United Kingdom to ban traditional fox hunting and hare coursing. It was repealed in 2023.
Sir Frederick Messer CBE was an English trade unionist, Labour Party politician and animal welfare activist. He was a member of the House of Commons and Chairman of Middlesex County Council.
John Gordon Cooper KC is a British barrister specialising in human rights and criminal law, and a politician.
In the United Kingdom, hunt monitors endeavour to observe behaviours of organized hunts and undertake information gathering activities, known as hunt monitoring.
Ernest Bell was an English publisher, writer and activist. He was an advocate for animal rights and welfare, vegetarianism, and humanitarian causes.
Henry Brown Amos was a Scottish activist for animal rights, vegetarianism, humanitarianism and against vivisection and hunting. He also worked for some time as a draper. Amos held a number of positions within organisations dedicated to animals and vegetarianism, and co-founded the League Against Cruel Sports in 1924.
Jordi Casamitjana is a vegan, zoologist, animal protection campaigner, and animal rights activist.
The National Society for the Abolition of Cruel Sports (NSACS) was a British animal welfare organisation that campaigned against hunting and other blood sports. It was formed in 1932 as a splinter organisation of the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports over a dispute within the League over their attacks on the RSPCA. The organisation advocated for legal protection for wild animals and peaceful methods to end the killing of animals for sport. It was dissolved in 2017.
Edward Alexander Hemingway was British journalist, animal welfare activist and opponent of hunting.
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