Camilla Swift Camilla Swift

Why is the National Trust hounding hunters?

The charity is on dangerous ground with its new stance on trail hunting

issue 02 September 2017
For the sound of his horn brought me from my bed/ And the cry of his hounds which he oft times led/ Peel’s ‘View, Halloo!’ could awaken the dead/ Or the fox from his lair in the morning.

Back in the early 1800s, the legendary huntsman John Peel galloped all over the northern Lake District. His successors are the Blencathra Hunt, a ‘fell pack’ who hunt on foot, but the Blencathra may be the last to hunt on Peel territory. Much of the Lake District is owned by the National Trust, the UK’s largest private landowner, and at the next National Trust AGM, on 21 October, a motion is being put forward which proposes banning trail hunting on all the Trust’s land.

Members will receive their voting papers in the coming weeks — but even before the vote has taken place, the Trust has already changed its stance. Last week, it surreptitiously changed the rules for hunts operating on its land.

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