YET MORE HARES SAVED BY SABOTEURS

On 27 January 2001, the Shrivenham Beagles met in the village of Baydon.  Also in attendance were sabs from Southampton, Reading, West London, Bath and Pewsey Vale.

The first the beaglers knew of the existence of sabs in the area was the arrival of a strategically parked car in the pub car park – behind a supporter’s car which in turn was behind the hound van.  This ensured that the beaglers could not use the traditional Wiltshire Police tactic of letting the hunt drive away while holding sabs up.

After the best part of an hour whispering to each other in the car park, the beaglers made a decision to traverse the fields in search of hares to torment.  Only 2 minutes passed before the entire pack was called and taken for a run.  The hapless hare hunters did not give up though – even if it meant putting some of their pack on leads!

The area hunted consisted of a high hare population, popping up all over the place, and all on the alert following the arrival of the Wilts police helicopter.  Hunting on tactics were used to run hounds past the scent when they were on the back of their quarry, and when drawing the open fields they were called onto tracks less likely to harbour their prey.

It wasn’t too long before the pack was split once and then shortly split again.  The result was a desperate whipper-in asking 2 sabs to take his hounds back to the hound van as he had less control than they did.  There was then a good ¾ hour wait for the rest of the pack and sabs to be gathered from their positions dispersed across the Wiltshire downs.