Hunting for a solution

Once upon a time, it wasn’t unusual for an estate owner to be a keen shooting man and also an enthusiastic supporter of the local hunt. Indeed, some packs were privately-owned and kennelled on the estate; their owner often being master and huntsman. Therefore, with a foot in both camps as it were, he’d want to show his shooting guests just as good sport as he would hope hounds would provide on a hunting day.

Sometimes, though, the hunting was more important and the estate gamekeepers would be expected to always have a fox in their coverts when hounds came to draw them. Naturally, the fox being an ‘enemy’ of game, this caused a conflict of interest – a conflict that, in theory at least, should have been in part negated by the introduction of the 2004 Hunting Act.

With all but