BBC TV presenter Chris Packham says that neither the law banning hunting with hounds nor the League Against Cruel Sports’ hunt monitoring scheme is working. He says: “It’s very difficult to monitor foxhunting and it’s also very difficult when things go wrong to get a successful prosecution. Police are under-resourced and have many other things to deal with.”
Despite the obvious misunderstanding of animals, Packham suggests hunts switch to drag hunting. He says: “It would have a positive impact in public relations terms as well as having a positive impact on wildlife.
“I’m not saying it’s the whole answer but it would be a step in the right direction.”
As a publicity stunt, he offered to be the first human quarry were the New Forest Hunt, his local pack, to switch from trailhunting to draghunting.
An NFH spokesman told the local newspaper, the Daily Echo: “We thank Chris Packham for his offer of being hunted by the New Forest Hounds but we don’t think it would be practical.
“We spent a lot of time and effort in getting our hounds to switch to trail hunting. We think it would be even more difficult, perhaps even impossible, to get them to switch to drag hunting.
“It would go against 250 years of breeding.”
