All eleven of Scotland's fox hunts were out yesterday on the biggest day of the Scottish hunting calendar.
One hunt, Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, gave up the chase because of inclement weather but last night the Countryside Alliance said each meet had attracted up to 100 supporters and observers. In total, more than four hundred riders turned out across Scotland.
The Berwickshire hunt met in Duns village square where it involved more than fifty riders and around 100 spectators.
The Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002 made the traditional form of hunting an offence.
Foxes are now flushed from cover so they can then be shot, rather than killed by dogs.
Jamie Stewart, the Countryside Alliance's director for Scotland, said: "The Scottish hunting community are rightly proud of their achievements.
"Having come through an all-encompassing campaign fighting to save the sport and in many cases livelihoods, they emerged from the fight on February 13, 2002, blooded but unbeaten.
"We must recognise and commend the resilience of hunting folk - the fact that we still have a form of mounted fox control in Scotland is testament to the determination of the people involved."
The Alliance has said evidence shows that three times as many foxes have been killed since the introduction of guns to fox hunting.
Since the act was introduced, new hunts have been formed, including the Strathappin Foxhounds and the Dumfriesshire and Stewartry Hunt.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article