Facebook style campaigning

The ACIG/AWIS used to put a lot of campaigning material up on Facebook where we had two presences. There was a small page for the Animal Cruelty Investigation Group but the bulk of our campaigning work was done on the personal page of our founder - Mike Huskisson - who has a fox as a profile picture. The Facebook pages will be kept but no further updates will be posted there. Instead they will all be posted here.

Posted on Tuesday May 20th 2014:-

Violence is a way of life for hunters. Here is a report from 1991:- January 17^th : A Magistrates Court heard how Duncan Branch, a farming subscriber with the Chiddingfold Foxhounds, had got off his horse and run towards two anti-hunt protestors shouting : “I’ve been in the army and I can punch.” He then assaulted both of them, lashing out with his fists and crop, causing them head injuries. Branch was fined £400 for this assault and ordered to pay £250 in costs and a further £50 compensation to each of the protestors. (HOWL (Magazine of the Hunt Saboteurs Association) 46, Spring 1991)

Posted on Wednesday January 1st 2014:-

Welcome 2014 and a Happy New Year to all. Let's make this a year when we work extra hard to bury the sordid pastime of bloodsports. Hunting wildlife represents all that is evil in our society. It is riddled with class and racial prejudices. Hunters are cowardly, callous and cruel - as well as cheerless and chinless. Let's free our wildlife from the intolerable burden of paying with their lives for the fun of a few.

Posted on Tuesday December 31st 2013:-

Give our wildlife a real life-saving boost for 2014. Support the Hunt Saboteurs Association. Sponsor a Hunt Saboteur, help a Hunt Saboteur, be a Hunt Saboteur.

Posted on Thursday May 9th 2013:-

Clive Rees, pictured here in 1982, defended Stuart Radbourne, Joint Master of the Avon Vale foxhounds who recently pleaded guilty to interfering with a badger sett. Is it any surprise that Clive: "will be happy to give advice and represent defendants in respect of all RSPCA prosecutions"? The AWIS - helping people understand bloodsports.

Posted on Tuesday May 7th 2013:-

The UK bloodsports rabble have to be the most pathetic. Their latest whinge is about their children being photographed/filmed at kills. Here's a tip for them - don't teach your kids that abusing and killing animals just for fun is the right way to behave.

Posted on Sunday May 5th 2013:-

Whilst many kids will, with encouragement, take to cruelty like a duck takes to water that is not true of all. One of the saddest sights in the world of bloodsports is the youngster being forced by parents to delight in the tormenting and killing of an animal. Kids in tears pleading to go home but being forced to stay and watch. In time they might learn to enjoy the killing but what a shameful form of abuse by the parents.

Posted on Friday May 3rd 2013:-

With paedophiles in the news I am reminded of a police statistic some years ago. There are 100,000 convicted and released paedophiles in our society but because of the nature of the crime only one in ten ever even see the inside of a court. And they tell us that those who are abused will often grow up to abuse others. This gives a measure of the problem and just shows what nonsense it is when the worst that some say of any human is that they "behaved like an animal". Compared to many humans all animals are saints. If there is a truth it is that just occasionally a rogue animal behaves "like a human".

Posted on Wednesday May 1st 2013:-

It is now just two years until the next election in the UK. The bloodsports rabble are already working overtime to ensure the election of the callous and cruel MPs who will do their bidding. Cameron in a coalition is bad news for animals but Cameron with a clear majority would be a true nightmare - it would be government support for all aspects of hunting - and worse. We need to counter all this and we need to start now.

Posted on Tuesday April 23rd 2013:-

I see that the Hunting brigade are crying that for them the hunting season just ending was an “absolute swine of a season”. One is tempted to say "poor diddums" but I suspect that it might just be a plea for Government sympathy. I hear what plenty of hunts did this season and it is clear that when there were no Hunt Saboteurs about the hunts did more or less as they liked. Far far different when the sabs were there - we need more sabs!

Posted on Wednesday April 17th 2013:-

Artificial earth photographed by Animal Cruelty Investigation Group investigator in April 2013. This is in a small copse near the Boxing Day meet in Chipping Norton for the Heythrop foxhounds.

“In countries where earths are scarce it is sometimes found necessary to make artificial earths, to provide somewhere for local foxes to have their cubs: in other words, for breeding purposes." (Fox-Hunting. The Duke of Beaufort. Pub. David & Charles. 1980.)

Posted on Thursday April 11th 2013:-

My talk at Bournemouth and Poole Animal Aid last night went really well - many thanks for the invitation and to all supporters and friends who came along. I even showed slides which must be almost prehistoric in terms of giving a presentation these days. I am keen to give these talks to any animal aid, animal rights or hunt sab group - you have only to ask! They are great opportunities to exchange campaigning ideas and experiences. As for costs we never charge but any donations towards expenses are greatly appreciated.

Posted on Wednesday April 10th 2013:-

Note that Margaret Thatcher, the self-styled Iron Lady of world politics was turned to jelly by the power of the hunting lobby amongst her own party. As a young MP in the early 1970s she voted for the abolition of hare coursing. When she rose to power the bloodsports Maffia had a word with her, and with her family and she never raised the issue again. When even Margaret Thatcher saw hare coursing as so cruel that it should be banned it must have been bad - and it was. It says everything about David Cameron that he now wants to repeal the law that finally banned this savage pastime.

Posted on Monday April 8th 2013:-

Just bought Tony Blair's autobiography from a (decent) Charity shop. He writes: "The fox-hunting subject resulted in one of the domestic legislative measures I most regret...". Assuming that he is not regretting creating a ban that is hard to enforce it says it all about his character that one of the most decent things his Government did is what he regrets most.

Posted on Friday April 5th 2013:-

Suffolk hares photographed this morning. Delightful and harmless creatures and I simply cannot comprehend how some can take such pleasure from tormenting and killing them. Cherish our wildlife.

Posted Sunday March 31st 2013:-

Hare coursing - a cruel pastime in which harmless and delightful hares are tormented and killed to entertain the likes of Clarissa Dickson Wright - seen here justifying her actions at the 2000 Waterloo Cup. If Cameron wins the 2015 election he will make it legal again.

Posted Friday March 29th 2013:-

Just heard Sky News reporting the new Rainbow Warrior being in Sydney, Australia. They mentioned the first one being blown up and sunk by the French Secret Service (in 1985) but not that the Greenpeace photographer, Fernando Pereira, was murdered in this attack. Why?

Posted Wednesday March 27th 2013:-

To fully understand how bloodsports work you have to get close - real close. Here perhaps the most revered Huntsman of his generation gives me a guided tour of his kennels. Know your opponent!

Posted Tuesday March 26th 2013:-

I have just found this in the archive. It is a reminder that we always need to be on our guard:-

LEADING HUNTER JAILED FOR BOMB HOAX

If a bomb was found under the vehicle of a leading hunt supporter it would seriously discredit the campaign to abolish hunting. This was the thought behind the actions of Alan Newberry-Street, the Director of the British Hunting Exhibition – a mobile bloodsports display supported by the British Field Sports Society and the Masters of Fox Hounds Association.

So Mr. Newberry-Street filled an HP sauce bottle with petrol and nails and planted it under his Landrover. He then phoned the police, claiming to be a spokesman for the British Animal Rights Society (which doesn’t exist) and told the police of the bomb. The police reacted swiftly in the aftermath of the Bristol car-bomb explosion, sealing off the village and evacuating villagers, including an old people’s home.

The bomb was discovered and the bomb squad called down from Herefordshire to the sleepy village of Seavington St Mary. After the ‘bomb’ was removed, police removed the Landrover from outside Newberry-Street’s home and took it away for examination.

A nail identical to those found in the ‘bomb’ was found under the driver’s seat cushion and Newberry-Street was forced to admit the hoax. At his trial, the prosecution reported him as saying: “I did it to discredit the Animal Rights and Hunt Saboteurs Associations”. He asked for other similar offences to be taken into account. Taunton Crown Court took a very serious view of the offences which show the depths to which some hunt enthusiasts are prepared to stoop in order to blacken their opposition. Following his trial, the man claiming to be behind the British Animal Rights Society (BARS) now really is behind bars – for nine months.

Wildlife Guardian Number 15 winter 1990-91

Posted Tuesday March 26th 2013:-

Deep undercover work to expose hunting. I took this image some years ago at a hunt kennels. Given this working environment is it any wonder that so many hunt staff are as they are?

Posted Monday March 25th 2013:-

Another image from the archive of the Animal Welfare Information Service.

Posted Sunday March 24th 2013:-

All bloodsports are cowardly but hunting the timid and harmless hare on horseback seems particularly gutless. Here are the Waveney Harriers playing with a terrified hare in 2000 - before the hunting ban.

Posted Friday March 22nd 2013:-

I went to this packed meeting in Norwich last night for the screening of the Hunt Saboteurs film 'A Minority Passtime'. Great to meet so many enthusiastic and compassionate people. Thank you Aidan for organising this. (Faces have been obscured to protect campaigners from violent attacks by bloodsports enthusiasts.)

Posted on Thursday March 13th 2013:

Text is: "Some journalists ask if hunters obey many laws in our countryside. Better to ask if ANY hunters obey ANY laws in our countryside."

Posted on Wednesday March 13th 2013:-

Quote from David Cameron speaking after Chris Huhne was jailed: "It's a reminder that no one, however high and mighty, is out of reach of the justice system." Really? Cameron's hunting chums seem to be so far out of reach of justice as to be out of sight.

Posted on Monday February 25th 2013:-

Colleagues monitoring the Waveney Harriers on Saturday returned to their car to find their windscreen smashed. We can never leave our vehicles out of our sight at any hunt - and even when we are in them some hunters will still have a go! I salute all these courageous volunteers, hunt saboteurs and monitors, who stand firm in the face of hunt violence and aggression to protect our wildlife.

Posted on Friday February 15th 2013:-

This image from 2000 shows how all hunts could and should end. No blood, no criminality, no violence, no trespassing, no pets or livestock killed, no rioting over roads and railway lines. Tragically most hunters regard such decent legal behaviour as "boring".

Posted on Tuesday January 29th 2013 (2) [The day that Simon Hart MP led a Parliamentary debate in Westminster Hall, London, criticising the RSPCA]:-

Here is Simon Hart, the Conservative MP for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire doing a bit of amateur terrier work at the dig-out at the end of a fox hunt in 2000. Is it any surprise that he is so hostile to the RSPCA for prosecuting his friends at the Heythrop foxhounds?

Posted on Tuesday January 29th 2013 (1):-

The are the sort that Hunt Saboteurs have to deal with. This image taken 20 years ago shows gentlemen hired by a foxhunt to decide who should or should not be allowed to use a public footpath.

Posted on Sunday January 13th 2013:-

Some say give us a million pounds and we could put four illegal hunts into court.

I say give us a thousand extra hunt saboteurs and there wouldn't be any illegal hunting.

Posted on Monday January 7th 2013:-

What the average hunt follower knows about hunting could be written with ease on the back of a second class stamp. In their determination to hunt illegally many hunts are ruining their hounds. Is it not obvious that if you praise hounds for hunting fox or hare one minute and then when someone unknown is watching or filming you shout at the hounds and tell them off you will baffle those hounds - as you would any dogs? A confused and dejected hound is pitiful - they will sit down, throw their noses to the heavens and howl in frustration. Hunters then shoot hounds they regard as "useless". What a truly pathetic pastime.

Posted on Sunday January 6th 2013:-

Here's a fact to make the bloodsports rabble even more miserable. Hunters helped to pay for the successful RSPCA prosecution of the Heythrop Hunt. Some years ago hunters were told to join the RSPCA with the aim of changing their policies to make them pro-cruelty - to make the RSPCA support the likes of fox, stag and hare hunting and hare coursing. Many did, dutifully paying their memberships, but not enough joined to destroy the RSPCA. Our hunt-loving media would go even more apoplectic on realising this.

Here are some of the earlier images that have been put up:-