Countryside Alliance - Hunting With Hounds

Hunting With Hounds

The Alliance states 'the countryside is enriched by country pursuits, whose participants should be free from prejudice and discrimination.'

The Alliance has long defended hunting, especially fox hunting, opposing the ban on fox hunting and other forms of hunting with hounds, which came into effect (in England and Wales) in February 2005 as a result of the Hunting Act 2004. Amongst other causes, the Scottish Countryside Alliance campaigns against the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002, which banned hunting north of the border. The Countryside Alliance has mounted a series of legal challenges to the Hunting Act 2004 which have not met with success.

Following the first conviction under the Act on 4 August 2006, the Alliance reaffirmed its belief that legislation was "illogical and unclear" and vowed to support the appeal against the conviction.

Opponents of the Alliance claim that this is the sole focus of the organisation, a claim it denies, saying that this campaigning is a response to the government's "preoccupation with the issue".