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A UK hunting lobby group is trying to obtain protection as an ethnic minority group for hunters under equality legislation. This would give people who hunt animals such as foxes and hares with dogs and other animals the same protections as those given to people based on race or sexual orientation.
Ed Swales, chair of the Hunting Kind, revealed at a hunting conference in late July that he had spent three years preparing a legal case to show that hunting is a protected characteristic. He said that the case had been submitted to a leading human rights lawyer for review. According to Swales, the lawyer believes “as a protected minority group under the Equality Act, we qualify, undoubtedly 10 out of 10.” He also said: “The qualifications of an ethnic group, there are five of them, and we hit every one straight in the bullseye.”
Under the Equality Act 2010, it’s illegal to discriminate against a person because of a protected characteristic. There are nine such characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. Swales said that hunters have faced discrimination such as losing work and being abused on social media.
“Natural hunting”
The Hunting Kind is trying to defend what it describes as “natural hunting,” using dogs, ferrets, and falcons to hunt wild animals. It says this is a “sustainable” and “humane” form of pest control and wildlife management. Swales said that this “replicates nature.”
The steps that he sees to achieving legal protection for hunters involve repealing the Hunting Act 2004, which banned hunting animals with dogs. So-called “trail hunting” is still allowed, but hunts have repeatedly exploited this legal loophole to keep hunting foxes.
According to Swales, the way to repeal the hunting ban would be to prove that people who “believe in natural hunting” had been discriminated against for that reason. He claims that this is what the “animal rights extremist movement” has engaged in, describing it as a “person-on-person conflict” that is “nothing to do with animal welfare.” The Hunting Kind is asking hunters and supporters to fill out a questionnaire about whether they had faced discrimination for their beliefs, such as being denied goods and services.
Campaign group Protect the Wild has described the Hunting Kind’s plan as “making a mockery of the Equality Act.” They said it “is an insult to all those who actually face discrimination day to day. Hunters are often some of the most privileged people in society.”
Hunting “not cruel”
Swales denied that hunting is cruel. “I take no delights in the suffering of an animal,” he said. “I am as animal welfare friendly as anyone I have come across, and my hunting compatriots are the same.”
Hunt saboteurs have documented hunt hounds ripping foxes to pieces and killing companion animals. Hunts have also been filmed chasing a stag to exhaustion in Somerset. The RSPCA has condemned using dogs for hunting for the suffering it causes to both wild animals and the dogs. The charity says it takes in many hunting dogs abandoned with severe injuries.
Public opposition
The Hunting Kind is right in a sense that hunters are a minority, as a majority of British people are opposed to fox hunting. According to the League Against Cruel Sports (LACS), 76 percent of people want to see the Hunting Act strengthened. A poll commissioned by LACS in 2017 also showed 85 percent were against repealing the hunting ban, and 90 percent were opposed to hare hunting and coursing.
The Labour government pledged in its manifesto to close the trail hunting loophole, bringing in a full ban on fox hunting. Foxes are “still getting killed as a result of those loopholes and we will close those loopholes,” environment secretary Steve Reed told The Times before Labour’s election victory.
