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Foxing the nation: The economic (in)significance of hunting with hounds in Britain

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The election in 1997 of a new Labour Government and the publication of the Wild Mammals (Hunting With Dogs) Bill provided an opportunity for the re-opening of the public and political debate about hunting wild animals with hounds in Britain. A significant new dimension to the 1997/98 debate was the increasing emphasis on the claimed economic importance of hunting and its provision of rural jobs. This paper critically examines the nature of such claims. It argues that economic claims about hunting should be assessed in the context of a changing rural economy, and demonstrates how the pro-hunting lobby's predictions of job losses from banning hunting are difficult to sustain. It suggests that if our starting point is a concern for the rural economy, then hunting is a minor issue compared with other pressing issues of the late 1990s such as, for example, European rural policy reforms. Moreover, a wider economic analysis suggests that hunting wild mammals imposes other social costs, in the form of disruption and damage to property, which could be avoided by switching to non-quarry hunts. The paper concludes by examining the reasons for the rise of this economic dimension to the hunting debate.
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*Tel.: #44-191-222-8939; fax: #44-191-222-5421.
E-mail address: neil.ward@ncl.ac.uk (N. Ward)
The initial research for this paper was commissioned by BBC North
in 1997 for its &Close Up North'Series. Further analysis was commis-
sioned in 1998 by the International Fund for Animal Welfare. The
paper's title is inspired by that de"nition of the word &fox'which implies
&to ba%e, to trick by slyness, or to delude'(Oxford English and Collins
Pocket Dictionaries).
Journal of Rural Studies 15 (1999) 389}403
Foxing the nation: the economic (in)signi"cance
of hunting with hounds in Britain
Neil Ward*
Department of Geography, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK
Abstract
The election in 1997 of a new Labour Government and the publication of the Wild Mammals (Hunting With Dogs) Bill provided an
opportunity for the re-opening of the public and political debate about hunting wild animals with hounds in Britain. A signi"cant new
dimension to the 1997/98 debate was the increasing emphasis on the claimed economic importance of hunting and its provision of
rural jobs. This paper critically examines the nature of such claims. It argues that economic claims about hunting should be assessed in
the context of a changing rural economy, and demonstrates how the pro-hunting lobby's predictions of job losses from banning
hunting are di$cult to sustain. It suggests that if our starting point is a concern for the rural economy, then hunting is a minor issue
compared with other pressing issues of the late 1990s such as, for example, European rural policy reforms. Moreover, a wider
economic analysis suggests that hunting wild mammals imposes other social costs, in the form of disruption and damage to property,
which could be avoided by switching to non-quarry hunts. The paper concludes by examining the reasons for the rise of this economic
dimension to the hunting debate. 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
The late 1990s have seen renewed debate over hunting
foxes and other wild animals with hounds in Britain.
Argument has raged on several di!erent fronts. First has
been a moral argument about animal rights and welfare,
and the in#iction of su!ering upon wild animals in the
name of sport. Second has been a discourse about cul-
tural traditions and the contribution of hunting to &the
country way of life'. Third has been an ecological dis-
course about e!ective pest control and the management
and conservation of valued habitats and species. Finally,
and serving as the starting point for this paper, has been
a set of economic arguments about the livelihoods of
people in rural areas, and the economic contribution of
hunting to the rural economy.
Before the 19th century, hunting was seen as the ex-
clusive preserve of a privileged land-owning class. How-
ever, its rising costs meant participation had to be
widened to bring in subscriptions. It was the &lower
landed classes'of nouveau riche and yeoman farmers
who took up hunting because of the perceived social
status that participation conferred (Itzkowitz, 1977).
Ironically, as participation widened during the last
century, so hunting came to attract more criticism.
Indeed, opposition to hunting has a history almost
as long as hunting in its more open and public form. As
19th century legislation outlawed several pastimes
deemed cruel to animals *including bear-baiting, bull-
baiting and cock-"ghting *so those groups campaign-
ing for the prevention of cruelty to animals began to
press for legislation to prevent hunting wild animals with
hounds.
E!orts to introduce legislation to ban hunting intensi-
"ed in the 1990s, with private members bills proposed in
1992 and 1995. Following the Labour Party's election
victory in May 1997, the new Labour MP for Worcester,
Mike Foster, drew top position in the private members
ballot and proposed the Wild Mammals (Hunting With
Dogs) Bill. The Bill sought to make it an o!ence to use
dogs to hunt wild mammals (such as foxes, deer, hares
and mink). The Bill was speci"c in its regulatory inten-
tions, and there was no proposal to ban shooting, "shing
or other country sports, as was sometimes inferred by
protagonists in the wider public debate. Moreover, not
0743-0167/99/$ - see front matter 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 7 4 3 - 0 1 6 7 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 0 5 - 4
Source: Hansard 3 March 1995, Cols. 1296}1368 and 28 November
1997, Cols. 1190}1271.
all forms of hunting with hounds were under threat from
the Bill, as some packs of hunting hounds *draghounds
and bloodhounds, for example *pursue a trail laid by
an arti"cial scent or a human runner, and so do not
involve the pursuit or death of wild mammals.
The next section summarises recent claims about the
importance of hunting to the rural economy. It argues
that such claims must be seen in the context of a dynamic
and changing rural economy, rather than a static system.
The paper then goes on to critically examine the claims
and suggests that some are insupportable. This parti-
cularly applies to those claims that seek to predict the
scale of job losses and damage to the rural economy.
The paper then introduces two new dimensions to the
economics of hunting *the potential for alternative
forms of hunting such as draghounds and bloodhounds,
and the social costs that hunting wild animals generates
*before ending with a discussion of the recent discursive
strategies of those raising economic arguments about
hunting.
2. The economic debate around hunting with hounds
Hunting wild mammals with hounds in Britain has
traditionally been opposed primarily because of concerns
about animal welfare and cruelty *in other words,
because of moral and ethical objections *while those
who have sought to defend hunting have stressed its role
as a form of pest control and as a &rural tradition'.
However, what has been distinctive about the hunting
debate in the late 1990s has been the rising pro"le of a set
of claims about the importance of hunting to rural em-
ployment and the rural economy.
The relatively recent rise of this economic dimension to
the debate is well-illustrated by the British Field Sports
Society's (BFSS) brie"ng document distributed in 1995
when John McFall's Wild Mammals (Protection) Bill
was being debated in the House of Commons. The "ve-
page document makes only one brief reference to hunt-
ing's contribution to the rural economy at the end. In-
stead, it sought to defend hunting primarily on pest
control grounds and by casting the campaign in support
of the Bill as &overcharged, misleading and disingenuous'
(British Field Sports Society, BFSS, 1995 p. 5). The as-
cendance of economic arguments in defence of hunting is
also evident from a comparison of the two Second Read-
ing debates on anti-hunting bills in the House of Com-
mons in 1995 and 1997. The debate on the Wild
Mammals (Protection) Bill in March 1995 contained
only two references to the feared impact of a hunting ban
on the rural economy by the Bill's opponents. In con-
trast, "ve opponents raised the jobs issue, and signi"-
cantly more time was spent debating the economic
arguments, in November 1997 during the Second Read-
ing debate on Mike Foster's Bill *a debate of similar
duration.This paper argues that part of the explanation
for the rise of this new economic dimension to the hunt-
ing controversy lies with the strategies of pro-hunting
campaigners. In the 1997 Parliamentary debate, it was
overwhelmingly pro-hunting MPs who raised the eco-
nomic argument. In doing so, they were seeking to widen
the appeal of pro-hunting arguments and present the
legislation as an attack on the rural economy, and thus
the countryside as a whole, rather than an attack on an
activity pursued by only a small minority of people. This,
as we shall see below, was an explicit strategy of the
pro-hunting campaign.
The campaign to oppose the Wild Mammals (Hunting
With Dogs) Bill was centred upon the e!orts of the BFSS,
operating under the banner of the &Countryside Alliance'.
The BFSS argued that the Bill would have `a severe and
detrimental impact on rural employment and 2social
and economic rural infrastructurea(British Field Sports
Society, BFSS, 1997a p. 1). It claimed that `more than
900 professional hunt sta!2would lose both job and
homeaand that `more than 13,000 jobs in the equestrian
industry and a$liated trades would also goa(British
Field Sports Society, BFSS, 1997b, p. 2). Such predictions
echoed those by politicians. For example, at the "rst
Countryside Rally in London in July 1997, Michael
Heseltine argued that the Bill `would damage already
fragile economies, it would destroy people's jobsa(Coun-
tryside Alliance, 1997, p. 18), and Baroness Mallalieu
claimed `16,500 jobs depend solely on hunting, 63,000
more rely in part on ita(p. 17). The suggested threat to
the rural economy more generally was an important
theme of the 1997 rally, and television news coverage of
the event featured a large hoarding on a Thames barge at
Westminster claiming that country sports contribute
`C3.8 billion a yearato the economy. Given their incred-
ible size, it is worth examining the production of these
"gures in more detail.
First, the widely cited "gure of C3.8 billion spending on
country sports is an estimate of economic activity which
includes a whole host of sporting pursuits besides hunt-
ing with hounds, none of which were threatened by the
proposed legislation. The "gure was drawn from a 1997
study by Cobham Resource Consultants (CRC) commis-
sioned by the Standing Conference on Countryside
Sports. The components of the expenditure estimate are
shown in Table 1. Hunting with hounds *the only
activity under legislative threat *comprised fewer than
"ve per cent of the total "gure, with angling making up
some 85%. Total expenditure by hunt organisers was
estimated at C17 million, with a further C159 million of
expenditure estimated to be spent by those who partici-
pate in hunting. The source of the "rst estimate is a
390 N. Ward /Journal of Rural Studies 15 (1999) 389 }403
Table 1
Cobham Resource Consultants'estimates of direct expenditure on countryside sports in Great Britain (at 1996 prices)
Activity Organisers'total expenditure
Cmillion rounded
Participants'total expenditure
Cmillion rounded
Total
Cmillion rounded [%]
Angling 24 3234 3258 [84.7%]
Shotgun shooting 115 255 370 [9.6%]
Stalking 5 27 32 [0.8%]
Hunting with hounds 17 159 176 [4.6%]
Falconry 10 *10 [0.3%]
Total 171 3675 3846 [100%]
Source: Cobham Resource Consultants (1997, p. 53).
Of course, the word &regularly'is a notoriously elastic one, and &once
a year'could in fact constitute &regularly'.
survey of hunt organisers conducted by the BFSS in
1996, but not referenced in the CRC report (1997, p. 51).
The second "gure was arrived at by taking an estimate
from 1990 (Cobham Resourse Consultants, CRC, 1992
p. 26) and adjusting for in#ation and a decline in partici-
pation numbers. Interestingly, the 1990 estimate was
itself produced by applying in#ation indices to a "gure
produced in a 1983 report (Cobham Resourse Consul-
tants, CRC, 1983 p. 16). The 1983 "gure was estimated
using the results of a survey of 538 hunt participants in
the 1981/82 season. Numbers have a tendency to give
the impression of &hard statistical facts'which cannot be
argued with (Porter, 1995). By excavating their origins
and examining the methodologies associated with their
production, numbers can come to appear much more
fragile and precarious. Cobham's 1983 study also reports
an estimate that `up to one million peopleaparticipate in
hunting (p. 12). If this were to be the case, then a 15-year
old survey of a 0.05% sample appears far from a robust
estimate.
CRC estimated that there were the equivalent of 910
full-time jobs directly employed by hunts, and that a fur-
ther 7600 full-time job equivalents were supported by the
expenditure of hunt participants. In addition to this is
indirect employment. The manufacturers of horse feed
and saddlery require inputs from other "rms and sectors
to manufacture these items, and hunting creates a de-
mand for a number of other goods and services including
transport and food and drink at pubs. Calculating in-
direct expenditure and employment involves the use of
multipliers. These are notoriously imprecise, contain
a host of assumptions, and are strongly in#uenced by the
quality of the data they rely on (see Lewis (1988), for
a detailed critique). CRC's report warned that multipliers
are `generally acknowledged to serve indicative rather
than de"nitive functionsa(1997, p. 72), but despite this
caveat, multipliers yielded the estimate that some 22,950
people were either directly or indirectly employed
through hunting.
The League Against Cruel Sports (LACS) has argued
that "gures published by the hunting lobby which predict
job losses are `hopelessly contradictorya(LACS, 1997,
p. 1). So what is to be made of claims that a ban on
hunting with hounds will cause job losses and damage to
the rural economy?
In addition to those employed directly by hunt
providers are those employed by hunt participants, prim-
arily to look after their horses. The 1996 National Eques-
trian Survey (British Equestrian Trade Association, 1996)
found that a total of 60,000 horses had been used for
hunting at least once in the previous 12 months, but was
unable to estimate the number of horses kept solely for
hunting. The survey did, however, calculate that 35,000
horses were kept for dual purposes including hunting,
with the remaining 25,000 kept for multiple purposes,
including hunting, riding for pleasure and at least one
other speci"ed purpose such as show jumping and
point-to-pointing.
The BFSS has estimated that 55,000 horses are used
regularly for hunting (BFSS, 1997a) *a high proportion
of the 60,000 found in 1996 to have been used for hunting
at least once.Where horses are used for more than one
purpose, the proportion of their use devoted to hunting
may be quite low, not least because hunting is limited to
six months of the year.
Moreover, the CRC studies use a de"nition of partici-
pant-related direct employment based on total expendi-
ture by participants on the upkeep of their horses. But it
would be wrong to treat all this expenditure as purely
hunting-related if the horses are used for other purposes
too, as many seem to be. In fact, only a proportion of
expenditure can be classed as solely hunting related.
Furthermore, CRCs consequent estimate of direct em-
ployment would include jobs that ought to be treated as
indirect supplier related employment (such as veterinary
services) and so runs the risk of double-counting.
But what of the claims made about indirect employ-
ment associated with hunting with hounds? Here the
data seem to become even less reliable. Two di!erent
e!ects should be taken into account when deriving
N. Ward /Journal of Rural Studies 15 (1999) 389 }403 391
Table 2
Summary of recent employment estimates
Source Direct Indirect Total
1234567
Hunt providers Hunt participants Total direct Suppliers Other multiplier Total indirect
CRC (1997) 910 7700 8600 (rounded) 6600 7750 14,350 22,950
BFSS (1997)910 3000 3910 8900 1000 9900 13,810
PSG (1998)910 6100 7010 8885 1411 8890 15,900
Souces: CRC (1997); BFSS (1997) and Produce Studies Group (1998a).
The BFSS "gures in the table are cited in a joint brie"ng paper by the Masters of Draghounds and Bloodhounds Association and the BFSS (MDBA
& BFSS, 1997, p. 5). For the purposes of Table 2, the "gures have been allocated as follows: (1) Direct employment, provider-related *910 (2) Direct
employment, participant-related *3000 `stable sta!of hunt followersa, (3) indirect employment, supplier-related !3,415 in the equestrian trade
(fodder, bedding, saddlery, clothing) and 5485 in the equestrian industry (vets, farriers, livery yards); (4) Indirect employment, income-related !1000 in
the provision of hotels, garages and horse boxes. The basis upon which these "gures were calculated is unfortunately not made clear in the 1997
document.
PSG's totals do not add up, presumbly due to rounding. PSG also concentrated only on mounted foxhoumd packs and not other packs of hunting
hounds.
indirect employment associated with hunting with
hounds *a supplier-related and an income-related
multiplier. Supplier related multipliers capture the em-
ployment e!ects amongst those who supply hunt
providers and participants with goods and services, and
income multipliers relate to the employment e!ects gen-
erated by the consumption of local goods and services by
those employed by hunt providers and participants.
No survey research exists on income multiplier e!ects.
However, a detailed discussion of the pitfalls and di$cul-
ties in applying multiplier techniques to the &hunting
economy'can be found in the study of two stag hunts in
south west England by Winter et al. (1993, pp. 63}77). In
reviewing several di!erent approaches to estimating
multiplier e!ects, they identify serious shortcomings with
each method, point to `serious theoretical and practical
problemsa(p. 65), call for `extreme caution'a(p. 63) in
their treatment, and emphasise `how imprecise these
estimates are bound to bea(p. 65). Acknowledging the
severe limitations on local data sources, they go on to
produce an estimated multiplier of 1.88 with the cal-
culated result that the 147 jobs estimated to be directly
associated with stag hunting in their area have a further
129 jobs directly associated with them.
At a more nationally aggregated level, the CRC 1997
report estimated that 6600 full time job equivalents were
sustained by hunt organiser and participant expenditure
in a sample of associated trades and services. CRC went
on to apply a multiplier of 1.51 in 1997 derived, curiously,
from an Input}Output analysis of the Scottish economy
(which has very little hunting with hounds) to calculate
a"gure for total employment associated with hunting
(which included falconry) of 23,950 (p. 55, 74).
A new set of "gures were produced for the Countryside
Alliance on 22 February 1998 *a week in advance of the
second &Countryside March'in London *by the Pro-
duce Studies Group (PSG, 1998). The PSG report syn-
thesises the "ndings of a set of studies commissioned by
the Countryside Alliance and other bodies on the eco-
nomic impact of fox hunting in expenditure and employ-
ment terms. The new "gures PSG arrive at are presented
alongside other recent estimates from the pro-hunting
lobby in Table 2. The table illustrates not only the range
of di!erent estimates o!ered, but also the speci"cdi!er-
ences between the BFSS's own "gures and those produc-
ed by the 1997 CRC study and the 1998 PSG report.
There are also those "gures cited by Baroness Mallalieu
quoted earlier who suggested at the Countryside Rally in
July 1997 that `16,500 jobs depend solely upon hunting;
63,000 more rely in part on ita(Countryside Alliance,
1997, p. 17). The basis for her claims is unknown, but they
would seem from the data in Table 2 to represent
a marked over-statement.
3. Hunting and the dynamics of a changing rural economy
In assessing the possible economic impact of banning
hunting with hounds, it is important to recognise that, in
the "rst instance, there is much doubt about the real
extent of related employment. Moreover, claims that all
jobs associated with hunting will be &lost'should hunting
be banned cannot be supported by evidence. This is, of
course, not least because hunting has not been banned. If
we take a more evolutionary perspective to assess trends
over time, there is some evidence to suggest that hunting
mammals with hounds is, in any case, in decline both in
terms of the number of hunts and the number of partici-
pants.
The League Against Cruel Sports (1997) have analysed
the annual editions of Baily's Hunting Directory *the
most comprehensive directory of all registered hunts in
392 N. Ward /Journal of Rural Studies 15 (1999) 389 }403
Table 3
Changes in Cobham Resource Consultants'estimates over time
1983 1992 1997 % Change (1992}1997)
Hunt employees (FTEs) 750 1050 910 !13.3%
Employment generated by hunt
participants (FTEs)
2300 8450 7600 !10.1%
Total direct employment (FTEs) 3000 9500 8600 !10.4%
Indirect employment (FTEs) 4780 18,025 7750 !57.0%
Total employment (FTEs) 9210 34,725 22,950 !33.9%
Direct expenditure }1996 prices (Cm) 197 (103) 179 (148) 186 #3.9%
Indirect expenditure }1996 prices (Cm) 180 (94) 165 (137) 116 !29.7%
Total expenditure }1996 prices (Cm) 377 (197) 347 (287) 302 !13.0%
GB participants 214,000 242,800 229,000 !5.7%
Source: CRC (1983, 1992, 1997). Figures for expenditure adjusted to constant 1996 prices using the Annual Abstract of Statistics (1982 and 1990 prices
in parantheses).
To calculate the percentage change, Cobham's rounding 8,510 to 8,600 (CRC, 1997 p. 57) has been ignored. 1997 "gures are in 1996 prices.
Source: Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Statistics
(http://www.ma!.gov.uk).
Britain *and found that the number of live quarry
hunts dropped by 42 between 1965 and 1995. In addition,
the estimates of participation, employment and expendi-
ture of live quarry hunts provided by CRC have shown
a decline in recent years. As Table 3 illustrates, Cobham's
"gures suggest a 13% decline in hunt employees, a 10%
decline in employment generated by hunt participants,
a 34% decline in the estimate of total employment,
a 13% fall in total expenditure and a 6% fall in participa-
tion between 1992 and 1997.
While the detail of individual estimates can be argued
over endlessly, it is not the intention here to produce
a new set of estimates to add to the pile already existing.
Instead, if this paper's argument that economic changes
associated with hunting must be viewed in the wider
context of a changing rural economy is accepted, then it
is useful to look brie#y at other statistics on employment
changes a!ecting the rural economy. For example, statis-
tics from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and
Food's annual census show that the total labour force in
agriculture declined from 682,000 in 1986 to 603,200 in
1996 *a decline of some 78,800 or 11.6%.Removing
part-time and seasonal workers from the "gures still
leaves a loss of 59,600 jobs over the 10 year period. Even
if all 910 jobs directly sustained by hunt providers were
to be lost at once, this would still equate with only 1.5%
of the jobs lost in agriculture in the past decade. Of
course, agriculture has not been the only rural employ-
ment sector to lose jobs in recent decades. For example,
the 1995 White Paper on Rural England cited 350 clos-
ures of rural schools between 1983 and 1995, each closure
having its own implications for the employment of
teachers, caretakers, kitchen sta!and cleaners (DoE and
MAFF, 1995 p. 86). Perhaps paradoxically, the closure of
village schools in rural areas never prompted protest
marches to London on the scale seen recently.
The potential job losses from a hunting ban will be
spread nationally throughout the rural economy. This is
in contrast with the closure of large plants (such as rural
factories or coal mines, for example) where job losses are
concentrated in a smaller localities with more cumulative
local social and economic consequences. NOMIS em-
ployment statistics suggest that in 1984 there were
232,500 people employed in coal-mining in Britain, but
by 1995 this "gure had fallen by over 95% to just 10,700.
The number of jobs lost just in coal-mining is almost 250
times as great as the number employed by hunt kennels.
Moreover, the impact of the closure of a coal-mine in
a rural area will have a far greater impact on the local
economy. Individual mines typically employ around
1000 people.
Of course, this analysis of national aggregate data on
employment in hunting need not deny that there are
some localities in which hunting with hounds does con-
tribute signi"cantly to the local rural economy. Indeed,
recent years have seen the production of some local
studies that explore the nature and extent of hunting's
local contribution. For example, work by Graham Cox,
Mike Winter and colleagues examined the economic and
social aspects of stag hunting on Exmoor and the Quan-
tock Hills in southwest England (see Winter et al., 1993;
Cox et al., 1994; Cox and Winter, 1997). This research
found that within the rural communities of the Devon
and Somerset Staghounds and the Quantock
Staghounds the economically active population totalled
20,600. Of these, 12 people were employed directly by the
hunts, 95 grooms cared for hunting horses, and a min-
imum of a further 40 jobs could be identi"ed in the trades
closely associated with stag hunting. Their multiplier
analysis yielded a total of 276 jobs, which approximates
N. Ward /Journal of Rural Studies 15 (1999) 389 }403 393
Interestingly, Winter has subsequently sought to argue that "eld
sports are &special'(1998, p. 96) because they are directly dependent
upon their rural location and because employment `tends to be the
preserve of indigenous rural inhabitantsa(p. 99). He draws a distinction
between a &country economy'(including hunting and other "eld sports)
that exists within, or alongside, the &new rural economy'(which can
include `businesses which might just as well be based in Bradford,
Birmingham or Brightona(p. 99). This argument is, of course, a norma-
tive one and is not uncontentious. It could be accused of giving
credence to an essentialist and sentimental notion of rurality that
attempts to privilege a &local rural job'over one that could also be
located in a city. The assumption in this paper, in contrast, is that no
special weight should be given to a job that may be claimed by some to
be essentially `ruralain comparison with any other jobs.
to 1.1% of the local economically active population
(Winter et al., 1993, p. 6).
A more recent study has been conducted by Produce
Studies Group (1998b) of the contribution to the rural
economy in the Scottish and Northumberland Borders of
seven local foxhound packs. The study found that 16
people were employed directly by the seven hunts and
a further 225 people were employed by the mounted
followers. Assuming national average wage rates for em-
ployment, the study then estimated from the expenditure
of the hunts and the followers the total employment
derived from the hunts to be nearly 350 full time job
equivalents.
Of these two local studies, the former is the more useful
in attempting to contextualise hunt-related employment
with total employment in the area. It underlines the
extremely limited nature of hunt-related employment,
even within a relatively peripheral rural locality. The
latter study includes quite crude assumptions in calculat-
ing numbers of jobs from expenditure data and there is
no sense of the relative contribution to the local econ-
omy.
For Britain's more remote rural areas, with their more
fragile local economies and higher levels of dependence
upon agriculture, three other political processes under-
way in 1997/98 are likely to have a far more important
bearing on economic fortunes. First has been the negoti-
ations to reform the system of European Union "nancial
supports for agriculture and rural development. In the
UK, the CAP represents spending on public support for
agriculture of approximately C4 billion a year (Ministry
of Agriculture Fisheries and Food and the Intervention
Board, 1997). The negotiations between the Member
States on the shape of CAP reform will have signi"cant
implications for the future economic fortunes of British
agriculture and its related industries (House of Commons
Agriculture Committee, 1998). Second has been the lin-
ked set of negotiations around the Structural Funds.
These Funds have grown since the mid-1980s to com-
prise a third of the European Union's total budget. For
the UK, they include major spending programmes (under
Objective 5b) to support economic development, diversi-
"cation and employment creation in economically disad-
vantaged rural areas. For the period 1994 to 1999, a total
of C1.7billion of European and other public funds are
programmed to be spent in 11 regions covering 68,000
square kilometres and containing almost 3 million
people (Ward and McNicholas, 1998a,b). The arrange-
ments for administering these monies, the scale of re-
sources divided between the di!erent Member States,
and the di!erent individual development priorities after
1999 were the subject of European negotiations through-
out 1998. Again, the implications of these negotiations
for "nancial support for economic development in the
more fragile rural areas are considerable. Finally, the
European ban on the export of British beef has meant the
loss of export markets worth an estimated C590million
a year to British producers (Elliot, 1996, p. 6). In addition,
the Government committed some C2 billion in 1996/97
and a further C1.4billion in 1997/98 to assist the beef
industry (Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food and
Department of Health, 1997 p. 2). The negotiations dur-
ing 1998 to lift the beef export ban have, therefore, also
been of considerable economic importance to British
rural areas. Together, these three sets of negotiations
involve between C5 billion to C6 billion of annual monies
of direct importance to the rural economy. The "gures
make the C17 million a year estimated to be spent by the
threatened live quarry hunts pale into insigni"cance.
4. The potential for alternative country pastimes
Let us assume that hunting wild mammals with
hounds were to be banned. What would be the prospects
for country sports in rural areas and their contribution to
the rural economy? To claim all those jobs currently
associated with hunting with hounds will be lost is to
adopt a namKve and simplistic view of economic change.
The rural economy is not a static system, but changes
and evolves over time, with profound economic and
technological transformations occurring within living
memory. For example, the agricultural labour force has
dropped dramatically *by almost a third *from
around 875,000 in 1960 to 600,000 in 1996 (Britton, 1990,
p.25; MAFF statistics). Thus, while metaphors of tradi-
tion, stability and continuity may abound in public and
political debate about the countryside, there is plenty of
evidence which instead demonstrates dramatic economic
and technological change, with important implications
for rural communities.
Moreover, it is now widely recognised that the last
decade or so has seen an important shift in the fortunes of
rural areas and in the role and function of the country-
side (see, for example, Marsden et al., 1993). This has been
characterised as a shift from an emphasis on production
concerns (e.g. agricultural expansion) to consumption
concerns (e.g. recreation, tourism and environmental
394 N. Ward /Journal of Rural Studies 15 (1999) 389 }403
conservation). The next section explains the main dimen-
sions of this shift in more detail, and pays particular
attention to the implications for recreation and country
sports.
4.1. New opportunities in rural development
The increasing pursuit of leisure activities has been one
of the dominant social trends of the late twentieth cen-
tury and is serving to alter not only the use of the British
countryside but also its social signi"cance, with decisions
a!ecting the countryside now felt to be legitimate matters
of concern for the population as a whole, rather than
simply those who live in rural areas. Recognition of
this issue prompted the Council for the Protection of
Rural England (CPRE) to commission a study of the
implications for the countryside of changing patterns
of leisure activity (CPRE, 1994). The following recent
social and demographic changes are worth considering,
in particular.
First, real disposable incomes have grown steadily over
the last decade for the majority of the population (by
23% between 1985 and 1994, for example). An increas-
ingly high proportion of this money is available for
spending on leisure activities with, for example, expendi-
ture on recreation as a proportion of total consumer
spending rising from 9 to 11% between 1985 and 1995
(CPRE, 1994, p. 9; CRC, 1997, pp. 2 and 7). Second, the
rural population in much of Britain has grown signi"-
cantly in recent decades. The population of the 150 most
rural local authority districts increased by almost 2 mil-
lion people (or 17%) between 1971 and 1991 primarily
because of net migration from more urban to more rural
areas (CPRE, 1994, p. 9; DoE and MAFF, 1995, p.13).
Third, there has been a large growth in the proportion of
the population in intellectually skilled employment and
with further and higher education quali"cations. Such
people are twice as likely to visit the countryside as semi-
or un-skilled workers (CPRE, 1994, p. 9; Centre for Rural
Economy, 1995, pp. 24}26). Fourth, there has been a con-
tinued growth in car ownership, with more than 70% of
UK households now possessing a car and with more than
45% of all car journeys now made for leisure purposes
(DoE and MAFF, 1995, p. 74). Finally, the popularity of
the countryside as a site for leisure is extremely wide-
spread. Almost 1.5 billion leisure day visits were made to
the countryside during 1996 (Social and Community
Planning Research, 1997).
In addition to these wider social and demographic
trends are a set of speci"c developments in public policy
which have an important bearing on countryside recre-
ation and country sports. For example, the last decade
and a half have seen increasing e!orts by the European
Union (EU) and the UK Government to move away
from the past emphasis on increasing food production
through production controls, price reforms and incen-
tives towards farm diversi"cation and environmental
protection. To help cope with the reform of agricultural
policy, farmers have been encouraged through public
grants and "nancial incentives to diversify their business-
es. Common examples of the conversion of farmland to
new commercial leisure purposes include golf-courses
and war games enterprises.
Farmers are also being encouraged to manage the
countryside in order to preserve valued landscapes and
habitats through Environmentally Sensitive Areas and
other &agri-environmental schemes'. According to MAFF
(1997), payments to farmers in England through agri-
environment schemes have increased from C3 million in
1987}1988 to an expected C80 million in 1998}1999 *an
increase of some 2600%. With rural development policy,
the UK Government and EU also recognise the potential
for tourism and leisure activities to assist in the economic
development of rural areas. For example, Objective 5b of
the Structural Funds seeks to promote economic devel-
opment and job creation in fragile rural areas through
the diversi"cation of agricultural businesses and the de-
velopment of tourism and leisure enterprises. If pro-
grammed match funding from national and local
government is added to the C680 million EU contribu-
tion, Objective 5b schemes provide almost C1.7 billion of
public funds in all (Ward and McNicholas, 1998a,b).
Moreover, measures to foster the economic diversi"ca-
tion of rural areas are contained within the new Rural
Development Regulation under the European Commis-
sion's Agenda 2000 proposals for the period 2000 to
2006. The Rural Development Regulation is the most
innovative component of the proposals for CAP reform,
and has been hailed by the Commission as the new
&second pillar'to the CAP (see Lowe and Ward, 1998).
Finally, the House of Commons Environment Commit-
tee reported in 1995 that tourism in rural areas is worth
C8 billion a year and supports 400,000 jobs (1995, p. 34;
see also Rural Development Commission, 1999). This has
been re#ected, not only in policy terms by the establish-
ment in 1992 of a new central government Department
for National Heritage, but also through the expansion in
the number of tourist attractions (CPRE, 1994, p. 52).
When taken together, these processes of social and
demographic change and associated policy develop-
ments, suggest considerable potential for the further ex-
pansion of country leisure pursuits. Indeed, the CPRE
study's overall conclusions drew attention to the likeli-
hood of `massive cumulative changes to existing rural
land use patterns over the coming decade and beyonda
(p. 61). In the light of these trends, what might be the
prospects for alternative sports involving hunting with
hounds should hunting wild mammals be banned?
There are currently two forms of hunting with hounds
that do not involve the pursuit of wild mammals. These
are drag hunts and bloodhound hunts. They are
little known country sports and have attracted very little
N. Ward /Journal of Rural Studies 15 (1999) 389 }403 395
Fig. 1. The changing number of draghound and bloodhound hunts in Britain.
academic interest to date. There are 17 packs of
draghounds and 11 packs of bloodhounds listed in the
1997/98 Baily's Hunting Directory, an increase from only
6 packs of draghounds and 2 of bloodhounds in the
1965/66 hunting season (see Fig. 1). In the section that
follows, the nature of hunting with draghounds and
bloodhounds is examined in more detail with a view to
assessing their potential as alternatives to hunting wild
mammals with hounds.
4.2. Drag hunting and bloodhounds
Drag hunting and bloodhound events seek to capture
the sense of occasion and the thrills of riding horses
alongside packs of hounds. But instead of pursuing wild
animals these hunts follow a scent left by a human either
running on foot, or dragging a scented &drag'from
a horse. One of the advantages of drag hunts is that their
scale and route can be planned and altered to suit the
participants. Lines can be shorter and safer for the more
cautious or longer and with more challenging jumps for
the more bold and experienced. At "rst sight, drag hunts
di!er little in appearance from other hunts. A huntsman
and one or two whippers-in control the pack of hounds
and are followed by mounted hunt participants and
spectators in cars or on foot.
While the oldest drag hunt dates back to the 1830s,
bloodhound packs are a more recent development, the
"rst being established in the mid-1960s. Bloodhounds
di!er from drag hunts in that there are fewer hounds and,
instead of a runner or rider dragging an arti"cial scent,
the hounds chase the scent of the human quarry, most
usually a member of a local athletics club.
Non-quarry hunts have been pointed to as worthy of
more attention. MacDonald and Johnson argue that:
only the most super"cial ingenuity appears thus far to
have been devoted to making draghunting appealing
2Nonetheless, the opportunity to make draghunting
more ful"lling is a challenge to be explored 2With
the opportunities o!ered by modern odour chemistry
to synthesise scents of particular qualities, the op-
portunities for farmers to pro"t by diversifying the
use of their land, the great desire of ever more people
to participate in benign country pursuits, there
would seem to be very strong incentives, both
cultural and economic, to explore with the greatest
zeal and ingenuity ways of making draghunting at-
tractive. This would seem the only course that is
likely to preserve, and indeed potentially to enhance
greatly, the traditions, skills, social infrastructure
and employment associated with fox hunting (1996,
pp. 204, 205).
In the context of such suggestions, it is worth examining
the claims made about the drawbacks of these &bloodless'
forms of hunting which may inhibit a switch to them
from more common forms of hunting with hounds.
396 N. Ward /Journal of Rural Studies 15 (1999) 389 }403
Examples of environmental land management schemes for farmers
cited in the 1995 White Paper on Rural England include: the Country-
side Stewardship Scheme; the Habitat Scheme; the Moorland Scheme;
Nitrate Sensitive Areas schemes; the Organic Aid Scheme; Countryside
Access Scheme (for set-aside land) and new access payments for Envir-
onmentally Sensitive Areas. These schemes just apply to agricultural
land, and are in addition to the White Paper's proposal for a doubling
of woodland in England over the next half century (DoE and MAFF,
1995, p. 119).
Two documents set out the main contours of the
debate. First is the report by the League Against Cruel
Sports (LACS, 1996a) *Drag Hunting: A Family Sport
*and second is the joint brie"ng paper produced by the
Masters of Draghounds and Bloodhounds Association
and the BFSS (1997) entitled Is Draghunting An Alterna-
tive to Foxhunting?
The LACS report was published in July 1996. It sets
out what the LACS saw as the main advantages of
banning hunting wild mammals and switching to drag
hunting: an end to the cruelty of hunting wild mammals
to exhaustion and death; an increase in the number of
hunts, with greater public participation; increased rural
employment; an end to protests and clashes between
hunt supporters and saboteurs; a reduction in policing
and court costs; an end to hounds causing road and rail
accidents, damaging crops and gardens, stampeding live-
stock and killing family pets (LACS, 1996a, p. 5).
Drag hunters, on the other hand, appear to "nd them-
selves in a di$cult position. Their formal organisation is
a member of the BFSS, and many drag hunters feel
themselves to be part of the hunting community. How-
ever, the proposed legislation to ban hunting with
hounds would put an end to the activities of the 300 or so
live quarry hunts, with the 29 &bloodless'hunts hailed by
hunting's opponents as the alternative way forward for
those wishing to continue to hunt with hounds. The
strategy of both the BFSS and the Masters of
Draghounds Association (MDBA) has therefore been to
strongly refute the claim that drag hunting is an alterna-
tive to other types of hunting with hounds. The MDBA
argue that `drag hunting is an exciting equestrian sport,
much enjoyed by its devotees, but it is a totally di!erent
type of sport to any other type of hunting with houndsa.
The statement went on to explain that drag hunting,
shooting and fox hunting `thrive side by side in the
countryside, with mutual co-operation and respect be-
tween all the forms of country sporta(BFSS, 1996, p. 1).
The debate about the pros and cons of non-quarry
hunts covers issues of land availability, the number of
hunting occasions and the management of wild mammal
species. Janet George, formerly the Chief Press O$cer for
the BFSS, explained the problem of land availability for
non-quarry hunts in the following terms:
If I go to 95% of the farmers in our hunt country and
say &we're not going to kill any foxes. We want to lay
an arti"cial scent and come galloping over your farm'.
Farmers will say &sod o!'. They'll say &forget it. I'm not
having forty horses galloping over my land if you're
not going to kill foxes'(BBC Radio 5 Live, 3rd January
1996, reported in LACS, 1996a, p. 10).
The LACS refutes this claim, citing a 1996 NOP opinion
poll which asked a thousand farmers about their atti-
tudes to hunting and to drag hunts (NOP Consumer
Market Research, 1996; LACS, 1996a,b). The poll found
that nearly half of Britain's farmers (48%) do not allow
any hunting on their land, although one in six of these
&anti-hunt'farmers would permit access to non-quarry
hunts.
Sir Richard Body, speaking in the Commons debate on
the Wild Mammals (Hunting With Dogs) Bill, claimed
that drag hunters `require to hunt on grasslanda(Han-
sard 28 November 1997 Col. 1255), and the MDBA and
BFSS sometimes argue that `drag hunting is only suited
to areas of grasslanda(1997, p. 5). However, analysis of
the draghound and bloodhound hunt &countries'in
Baily's Hunting Directories suggests that drag hunts and
bloodhounds do not solely hunt on grassland. Descrip-
tion of some hunt countries, for example, stress the `var-
iety of terrain from open till with stone walls to good
lowland pasture and arablea(Cheshire Farmers Drag
Hunt, in Baily's (1997), p. 303), and although the majority
of draghound and bloodhound hunts take place in more
predominantly grassland areas, this is far from exclus-
ively the case. Six mention arable land as part of their
hunting territory and two (the Cambridge University
Draghounds and the East Anglia Bloodhounds) hunt in
East Anglia *the region most strongly associated with
arable farmland.
In any case, while the four decades after the Second
World War did see an &arableisation'of British agricul-
ture, and the regional specialisation of production, these
trends have been much less pronounced in recent years.
With the introduction of set-aside and the poor relative
pro"tability of arable production in the late 1980s, ele-
ments of more &mixed'farming with more of a mosaic of
"eld types and land uses re-emerged in lowland Britain.
Moreover, a plethora of woodland grant schemes and
other &environmentally sensitive'land management
schemes are helping in the gradual re-emergence of
a more mixed farming landscape.And because the pre-
cise route taken by a drag hunt can be planned and
agreed in advance, such hunts are able to &open up'land
to use which would be deemed too risky for live quarry
hunts. An arti"cially laid scent can make use of those
smaller pockets of land closer to busy roads or villages
with no risk of the hunt following a #eeing animal across
roads or through built up residential areas (Kidd, 1978).
Linked to the question of land availability is the
argument that the number of drag hunting occasions is
N. Ward /Journal of Rural Studies 15 (1999) 389 }403 397
This point echoes the argument that foxes and hares are actively
encouraged in parts of the countryside and are moved by hunts from
site to site to provide su$cient quarry for the hounds (see the A View To
A Kill video produced in 1997 by the Campaign for the Protection of
Hunted Animals). In their &A Pack of Lies'document, the LACS (1997)
claim that `these days, most Hunts create arti"cial earths in which
vixens can rear their cubs, &stick-piles'for fox shelters above ground,
and even provide food in the form of dead poultrya. They quote a BFSS
spokesperson speaking on BBC television on 6th June 1996 who said
`
2in a lot of parts of the [hunt] countries there aren't a lot of foxes so
their hunting is much more involved in almost conserving the fox
population, helping to look after it rather than killing foxes.a
strictly limited in comparison with live quarry hunts. The
MDBA and BFSS (1997) (p. 4) calculate that recognised
packs of live quarry hounds provide 22,220 "xtures per
year, 16,020 of which involve mounted followers (as op-
posed to footpacks). In contrast, drag and bloodhound
hunts provide 750 "xtures per year, making up just 3.3%
of all hunt "xtures and 4.7% of mounted hunt "xtures.
The main constraints on the number of hunting occa-
sions are closely related to the availability of land. Both
these points are linked with the question of the goodwill
and co-operation of landowners. The presence of lam-
bing ewes can be a constraint on drag hunting but, of
course, the same is true for fox-hunting. In fact, because
of the planned and controlled nature of non-quarry
hunts, they are able to continue into the lambing season
in some parts of the country when the more unpredict-
able live quarry hunts have to stop. When relations with
local farmers are good, there seem few problems with
lambing. Indeed, farmers or shepherds sometimes even
take the trouble to move more sensitive livestock in order
to accommodate their drag or bloodhound hunts safely.
Another set of arguments used to refute the claim that
drag hunting could replace hunting wild mammals with
hounds concerns hunting's role in the management of
hunted species (MDBA and BFSS, 1997 p. 1). This point
was outlined by Labour MP Kate Hoey, who opposed
and voted against the Wild Mammals (Hunting with
Dogs) Bill in the House of Commons. She said that `It is
nonsense to argue that drag hunting is a suitable alterna-
tive to hunting. Drag hunting does not require the main-
tenance of suitable habitatsa(Hansard, 28 November
1997, Col. 1238). This is a perplexing claim for two
reasons. First, it contradicts the hunting lobby's claim
that hunting serves as a useful form of pest control when
it suggests that suitable habitats have to be actively
maintained to generate a su$cient population of foxes to
hunt!Second, the claim implies that conventional hunts
play an important role in the contemporary conservation
of valued landscape features and wildlife habitats in the
countryside and that such practices would not be carried
out if these hunts were replaced by drag hunts. But, as we
saw above, an important feature of agricultural policy
over the last decade has been the massive expansion of
resources paid directly to farmers to maintain valued
landscape features and wildlife habitats (MAFF, 1997).
The MDBA and BFSS (1997) (p. 3) also argue that
`drag hunting provides no bene"t for the countryside in
terms of conservation or community supporta. In other
words, drag hunting does not generate the social bene"ts
that conventional hunting does. Winter and colleagues
(1993) detail a wide range of social activities organised by
the two stag-hunts they studied. These activities range
from Hunt Balls to jumble sales, kennel evenings and
a junior gymkana. These events often bring together
farmers, hunt followers and other members of the rural
community and help generate a &community spirit'based
on shared values.
Of course, there is no reason why such activities should
not continue in the absence of hunting wild mammals.
Indeed, drag and bloodhound hunt organisers currently
speak of their generally good relations with local farmers
who grant access, and explain how "eld boundaries are
kept well-maintained by hunts and are repaired for
farmers following each event. Farmers are also usually
invited to join drag hunt organisers and participants for
social events at the end of a drag hunt and on special
occasions such as the annual Hunt Ball and Farmers'
Dinner. Such events are repeatedly cited as a pleasant
part of rural social and community life. Indeed, analysis
of the 1998 meet card for one draghound hunt *the Isle
of Wedmore Draghounds in Somerset *would suggest
little di!erence in terms of social and cultural practices
between such hunts and conventional ones.
Despite stressing that `draghunting and foxhunting
are totally di!erent sports. Neither one provides a substi-
tute for the othera(p. 6), the MDBA and BFSS do
acknowledge the potential for the recent growth in drag
hunting to continue, but argue that `it is di$cult to
envisage more than an overall total of sixtya(1997, p. 6).
However, this assumes future growth in drag hunting in
its current form. Responding to MacDonald and Joh-
nson's (1996) call for ingenuity and innovation in consid-
ering the potential for drag hunting, we might consider
the possibility of competitive drag hunting, with teams
racing against each other or against the clock, or the
possibility of televised drag hunting. Draghounds and
bloodhounds have much to o!er the TV viewer, not only
in terms of the aesthetic attractions of the hunts with
horses and hounds riding across open country, but also
because of the intricate interplay between the skills of
&man and beast'and the &battle of wits'played out be-
tween the &drag layer', the hounds, the huntsman and the
followers. These suggestions are o!ered merely to illus-
trate how moving beyond predictions about the growth
of drag hunting in its current form, we can begin to see
how an innovative and enterprising approach to the
development of such sports could yield economic bene"ts
for the hunts themselves, for rural landowners, and other
services and businesses in the rural economy.
398 N. Ward /Journal of Rural Studies 15 (1999) 389 }403
It is di$cult to argue with the point that drag hunting
and fox-hunting are not the same thing and so the former
is no substitute for the latter. Of course, the main di!er-
ence between the two activities is that the former hunt
wild animals while the latter do not. However, it is fair to
say that if a ban on hunting wild mammals with hounds
were to become law, then hunting with draghounds and
bloodhounds would become the nearest legal alternative
for those wishing to continue to hunt with hounds (Kidd,
1978). Moreover, there are plenty of signs of widened
interest in, and demand for, the opportunities to hunt on
horseback, accompanied by hounds, to enjoy the sense of
occasion and community spirit that such events generate,
and yet to avoid the hounding and killing of wild ani-
mals. In addition, there are signs of innovation and
enterprise amongst providers in the establishment of new
draghound and bloodhound hunts in response to this
demand (as re#ected in Fig. 1).
Overall, it would be wrong to suggest that draghound
and bloodhound hunts provide a complete alternative to
hunting live mammals with hounds. The nature of the
chase is di!erent because the route of the hunt is pre-
planned. It is also unlikely that the growth in such hunts,
in their current form, would provide all the jobs currently
associated with conventional hunting. Nevertheless, hu-
man ingenuity in the planning of drag hunt routes
*with sophisticated zig-zagging through "elds and
woods to challenge the hounds and riders *can o!er
hunt participants an experience that comes close to con-
ventional hunting. Moreover, a more innovative and
commercial approach to alternative hunting could po-
tentially boost its economic contribution beyond that
acknowledged by the BFSS and MDBA. Perhaps of most
signi"cance among the economic costs and bene"ts asso-
ciated with such a switch would be the reduction in the
social costs that conventional hunting imposes on non-
participants, and it is to these costs that we now turn.
4.3. The social costs of hunting
One further dimension to the debate about the eco-
nomic impacts of hunting with hounds concerns the costs
that hunting imposes on rural communities and others.
These costs involve damage, disruption and inconven-
ience. They are notoriously di$cult to quantify in monet-
ary terms, and so the objective here is to provide some
indication of the di!erent types of costs incurred, and to
assess the claim that a ban on hunting wild mammals
with hounds would bring the bene"t of greatly reducing,
if not ending altogether, the damage and disruption hunt-
ing causes. The LACS explain:
when chasing a wild animal, the hounds attempt to
follow the quarry wherever it runs. Every season there
are scores of reports of hounds being killed on main
roads and railway lines, panicking livestock, damaging
crops and invading gardens and village streets. Inevi-
tably, there are occasions when domestic pets cross the
path of the hounds in full cry which, in their excite-
ment, turn their attack onto the unfortunate cat or
dog. This maiming and killing of cats and dogs by
hounds is far from uncommon and frequently happens
before the eyes of distressed pet-owners (League
Against Cruel Sports, 1994a, p. 3).
The LACS have collated details of incidences of damage
and disruption. It is important to note that the data are
from one of the main organisations pressing for a ban on
hunting with hounds. However, the LACS'sreport(1994a)
was supplemented with a document reproducing local and
national press clippings to corroborate incidents (League
Against Cruel Sports, 1994b). Any analysis of the LACS
data cannot claim to be comprehensive or de"nitive, but
only indicative of the nature and extent of reported incidents.
Nevertheless, it seems clear from the LACS compilation
that what has come to be called &hunt havoc'(Countryside
Protection Group, 1998) is far from a series of isolated
incidents, as is often claimed by hunt supporters.
Between 1991 and 1997, "gures on reported incidents
of hunt havoc range from 44 in 1995 to 85 in 1996. The
mean number of reported incidents in the period 1991 to
1997 is 58 incidents per year. The "gure should not
necessarily be taken to imply that hunting with hounds is
becoming notably more chaotic and disruptive over time.
Rather the trends may indicate rising reporting rates,
perhaps prompted by greater levels of awareness and the
politicisation of the hunting issue.
Table 4 presents a breakdown of reported incidents by
type of incident and by region. In all, LACS have collated
information on 682 reported incidents between 1986 and
1997. The most common type of incident are those in the
category &invasions or trespass'which comprise 255 inci-
dents (or 37% of the total). The second most common
type is disruption to roads and railways, comprising 176
incidents (or 26% of the total), followed by disruption to
livestock (93 incidents, or 14%) and attacks on domestic
pets (75 incidents or 11%).
On occasions, the costs incurred by damage or disrup-
tion caused by hunting with hounds can a!ect large
numbers of people and be widely felt. For example, on 20
January 1998, thousands of rail passengers were sub-
jected to delay following an incident on the Paddock
Wood to Tonbridge line. Ten hounds from the West
Kent Hunt were electrocuted when they tried to cross the
line in pursuit of a fox. Power had to be turned o!, which
trapped four trains, including two Eurostar services des-
tined for the Channel Tunnel. According to a report in
the Observer (25th January, 1998) `in all, 45 trains were
delayeda. In answering a Parliamentary Question on the
incident, the Minister for Transport, Glenda Jackson,
explained `Railtrack have advised me that the railway
line was blocked for 41 minutes on the 20th January
N. Ward /Journal of Rural Studies 15 (1999) 389 }403 399
Table 4
Hunt Incidents by Region (1986}1997)
Type of
Incident
North Yorks and
Humberside
East
Mid-lands
East Anglia South East South west West
Mid-
lands
North West Scotland Wales Total
(%)
Attack on domestic
pets
010 72 231461 3975
(11.0)
Property damage 0 3 4 2 13 11 5 2 1 4 45
(6.6)
Invasion/trespass 8 22 31 6 50 69 33 11 5 20 255
(37.4)
Quarry killed on
private property
24 6 1 6 10 53 0 138
(5.6)
Disruption to
livestock
4 1 9 3 19 29 13 7 2 6 93
(13.6)
Road/rail
disruption
6 13 31 9 51 35 9 16 6 0 176
(25.8)
Total (%) 20
(2.9)
53
(7.8)
88
(12.9)
23
(3.4)
162
(23.8)
168
(24.6)
71
(10.4)
40
(5.9)
17
(2.5)
40
(5.9)
682
(100)
Source: Data compiled from LACS "les and published reports (1994a,b, 1995).
Interestingly, this approach has been used to examine the fortunes
of the 2200 employees of the Swan Hunter ship-yard on Tyneside which
closed in 1993 (Tomaney et al., 1999, in press). A survey of ex-Swan
Hunter workers found that under 40% remained unemployed after two
years and a third of these had had some work in the period since leaving
Swan Hunter's (Tomaney et al., 1998), leaving just over a quarter (26%)
of redundancies resulting in continued unemployment. The survey
therefore helps to illustrate the complex and dynamic nature of employ-
ment change, and the danger of assuming that plant closure necessarily
leads to permanent unemployment for all those made redundant.
1998. Three scheduled services were cancelled and there
was a total train delay of 603 minutesa(Hansard, Written
Answers, 5 February 1998, Col. 724).
It is argued that a ban on hunting wild mammals with
hounds would end these incidents of damage and disrup-
tion caused by hunts. The LACS point to the fact that
they have `never heard of any incident where
draghounds or bloodhounds out hunting have caused
any problems to wildlife, crops, livestock, pets or road
and rail tra$ca(1996a, p. 6) and such claims are echoed
by non-quarry hunt organisers. Moreover, the fact that
routes are carefully planned out in advance through
discussions between the hunt master, the drag runner or
rider and the landowners means that the risks of the
hounds rioting and causing disruption can be avoided.
The human runner or rider has no need to cross roads,
railway lines or private gardens to escape the hounds. It
therefore seems reasonable to suggest that the social
costs associated with drag and bloodhound hunts are
likely to be considerably less than live-quarry hunts.
5. Conclusions
As we saw above, it has only been relatively recently
that those who oppose legislation to ban hunting wild
mammals with hounds have concentrated their cam-
paigning e!orts on drawing attention to the economic
contribution of country sports. The result has been an
avalanche of claims and statistics about the expenditure
and jobs associated with hunting. Often, "gures are cited
for all country sports to create the impression of a multi-
billion pound industry. However, headline "gures, such
as the &C3.8 billion a year'banner at the Countryside
Rally include a host of sporting activities (such as ang-
ling) which have not been threatened by legislation to
ban hunting with hounds.
The debate about the economic bene"ts of hunting
with hounds has been prone to &data overload'and much
confusion about which "gures constitute the most re-
liable estimates for those speci"c activities under threat
from legislation. It is consistently estimated, however,
that there are fewer than 1000 full-time equivalent (FTE)
jobs directly provided by those hunts threatened by the
proposed ban on hunting wild mammals with hounds.
Over and above these jobs, by far the most important
determinant of the economic impact of a hunting ban will
be what hunt followers choose to do with their horses. It
would seem unlikely that all hunt followers will dispose
of their horses, particularly because hunting horses are
often also used for other leisure purposes. And in any
case, claims that large numbers of jobs will automatically
be lost following a ban cannot be sustained by reference
to any evidence (not least because hunting continues).
Such claims can only be pure conjecture, and are wrongly
based on a static view of how the economy works. For
such claims to be supportable, hunting would have to be
banned and the fortunes of those whose jobs were asso-
ciated with hunting would have to be subsequently
monitored over time.
400 N. Ward /Journal of Rural Studies 15 (1999) 389 }403
Arguments about the economic contribution of hunt-
ing to the rural economy have been partial in their
coverage, and little information has been presented to
help place hunting with hounds in the context of a chang-
ing rural economy. An evolutionary perspective on the
economic role of hunting requires that the changing
nature of the rural economy over time be considered. To
date, however, there has been insu$cient research into
the potential for alternative horse-related country pas-
times as replacements for hunting wild mammals with
hounds. The potential for growth in expenditure and
employment related to drag hunting and bloodhounds
accords with current trends in rural land use, demand for
countryside leisure and government incentives through
land use and economic development grants. Already, the
number of drag and bloodhound hunts have more than
doubled in number in the last 10 years, re#ecting increas-
ing interest and demand.
It is important, however, to recognise the economic
and technical constraints on the expansion of drag and
bloodhound hunting, which include the smaller number
of occasions on which such hunts currently take place,
and their dependence on the goodwill of landowners. The
scale of any future expansion in these sports will also
depend upon the degree of innovation and enterprise
amongst providers. Extrapolation of opinion poll "nd-
ings suggests that in the order of 60,000 farmers nation-
ally would agree to allow drag hunts to use their land.
But this forecast is without mention of any "nancial
remuneration. If farmers were to be paid a fee, we might
expect more farmers to agree.
If we start from the perspective of a concern for the
rural economy, hunting with hounds is of little economic
signi"cance nationally. This is not, of course, to deny nor
diminish its great signi"cance, both economically and
socially, to those people whose livelihoods are wholly
dependent on hunting wild mammals with hounds. Nor
is it to deny the fact that in some remote and often
sparsely populated rural localities *such as the Quan-
tock Hills in the south west or Northumberland *hunt-
ing may make a signi"cant and noticeable contribution
to rural life, if not necessarily the rural economy. But in
comparison with other national trends in employment
change in rural areas, the numbers employed in hunting
nationally are extremely small. For the economic for-
tunes of Britain's more remote and economically fragile
rural areas, European reforms involving the Common
Agricultural Policy, the use of the Structural Funds for
rural development, and the ban on British beef exports
are far more signi"cant. They together involve between
C5 billion and C6 billion of annual monies of direct im-
portance to the rural economy, and make the C17 million
a year estimated to be spent by the threatened live quarry
hunts pale into insigni"cance.
The economic argument put forward by hunt sup-
porters is that a hunting ban would do harm to the rural
economy and put people out of work. Stepping aside
from the moral and animal cruelty issues, and recognis-
ing the much talked of delights to be enjoyed when riding
horses, accompanied by hounds, across open country, we
may then "nd it equally plausible to argue that banning
hunting could help serve to widen participation in new
forms of country sports like drag hunting, and so stimu-
late new forms of rural economic development. Meeting
such an objective would require innovation and enter-
prise amongst draghound and bloodhound hunt
providers, although the evidence suggests real commer-
cial opportunities may exist.
The hunting question is a "ercely contested one. This
is in part because of the moral dimension to the debate,
and partly because of a set of deep-rooted prejudices
that persist in Britain in some quarters between town
and country and between social classes. This is not to say
that the hunting debate can be understood simply as
a matter of &town versus country'or as some form of
&class war', but rather that these notions are being in-
voked, and the sentiments surrounding them are being
in#amed, by some protagonists in the debate (see Woods,
1998a,b).
In this context, it is important to recognise why the
economic dimension has come to the fore in the current
public debate about hunting with hounds. This has prim-
arily been the results of the BFSS/Countryside Alliance
who have sought to widen support for the pro-hunting
argument by `making the defence of hunting synony-
mous with defence of the countrysideaso tapping into the
`rich vein of frustration felt by &rural folk'atowards what
is often cast as a distant and starry-eyed urban majority
(Daniel, 1997, p. 24). As Caroline Daniel has pointed out,
`rural frustration is certainly a better button to press
than asking people to defend a sport pursued by a minor-
itya(p. 24).
Further light was thrown on the strategy devised by
the BFSS/Countryside Alliance as a result of a dispute
within the organisation in the aftermath of the March.
The dispute centred upon what the overall aims of the
Countryside Alliance should be, and resulted in the resig-
nation of the new Chief Executive, Edward Duke, after
just "ve months in the job and the sacking of Janet
George, the Chief Press O$cer. George explained the
Countryside Alliance's strategy to the Guardian after her
departure. The idea was sly but simple, she said. `Wrap
up hunting in the wider rural fabric. Because everyone
loves the country and hates huntinga(quoted in Beckett,
1998a, p. 5).
Interestingly, other rural pressure groups have re-
mained detached from the BFSS/Countryside Alliance
campaign. Fiona Reynolds, then Director of the Council
for the Protection of Rural England (which has not taken
a position on hunting), told the New Statesman `It's clear
that Countryside Alliance exists "rst and foremost to
lobby for country sportsaand explained that CPRE did
N. Ward /Journal of Rural Studies 15 (1999) 389 }403 401
not take part in the "rst Countryside Rally in July 1997
because `its purpose was to draw a positive message
about huntinga(quoted in Daniel, 1997, p. 24). This was
reiterated in the spring of 1998 in advance of the second
Countryside March by CPRE spokesman, Tony Burton,
who said `we have no view on hunting, and the roots of
this march lie very much in the hunting issuea(quoted in
Beckett, 1998b, p. 2).
Part of the fear of these other rural groups also derives
from the political complexion of the pro-hunting cam-
paign. It has increasingly come to be seen as a reaction-
ary campaign drawing primarily on right-wing support.
For example, a survey of a sample of over a thousand
people attending the Countryside March in 1998 found
that four-"fths of those surveyed were supporters of the
Conservative Party and only seven per cent were Labour
voters (White and Perkins, 1998). Moreover, during 1998
there has been increasing evidence that extreme right-
wing political activists have aligned themselves with the
pro-hunting campaign. The far-right British National
Party (BNP) targetted the Countryside March and agri-
cultural shows (Prince, 1998; Meikle, 1998), and the
spring 1998 edition of the BNP's magazine, British Coun-
tryman, is devoted to a discussion of &rural issues'includ-
ing a defence of hunting with hounds.
In seeking to cloak themselves with the banner of an
embattled and misunderstood rural minority, threatened
or oppressed by a namKve and sentimental urban majority,
those who support hunting with hounds are claiming to
speak for the whole countryside. This claim, however, does
not appear to be supported by public opinion polls which
suggest that support for a ban on hunting wild mammals
with hounds is widely expressed, even by those people
who class themselves as &rural'. For example, in a Gallup
poll published in the Daily Telegraph on 11 August 1997,
77% of people who described themselves as &country
people'said they disapproved of hunting foxes with
hounds (Campaign for the Protection of Hunted Ani-
mals, 1998). Furthermore, the Rural Agricultural and
Allied Workers Trade Group of the Transport and Gen-
eral Workers Union condemned the economic claims of
the Countryside Alliance as `nonsensea(Leathwood,
1998, p. 3) and supported the Wild Mammals (Hunting
With Dogs) Bill. The claim that the hunting debate
re#ects some divide between town and country is di$cult
to sustain given these facts.
This paper has concerned itself solely with the evidence
and arguments about the economic bene"ts (and costs) of
hunting wild mammals with hounds. Its overall con-
clusion is a simple one. If our starting point is a concern for
the fortunes of the rural economy, it is more appropriate to
"rst consider questions other than the hunting one. The
1998 discussions over how best to reform the shape and
priorities of the Common Agricultural Policy and the
European Structural Funds, and how to lift the export
ban on British beef, will prove to be of far greater conse-
quence for the livelihoods of people in Britain's rural
areas than any debate about the fate of the wretched fox.
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... The political interest in hunting with hounds has provoked some attention among rural sociologists and geographers (Cox et al. 1994, Cox and Winter 1997, Ward 1999, Milbourne 2003a and also substantial media coverage. The chapter considers the findings of several -substantive empirical projects exploring hunting; the analysis of the 2002 'Liberty and Livelihood' march by academic commentators and also within the national press; an economic evaluation of hunting's contribution to the UK economy -and ends with an evaluation of the methodological and theoretical preoccupations of these studies. ...
... Nevertheless, the study is partial and risks lending itself too heavily to the government's agenda for researching hunting than a concern for theoretical and methodological development of rural research more generally ). Nevertheless, Cox and Milbourne's respective approaches stand out among the rash of economic evaluations of hunting's contribution to the UK economy, whereas economic factors have provided the central focus of other studies (Cobham Resource Consultants 1992, Ward 1999) and other contracts commissioned by the Burns Inquiry (Home Office 2000). The issue to emerge within these analyses is multipliers -and to what extent they can be extrapolated. ...
... He therefore complements the previous studies of hunting by adding another dimension of understanding to the hunting debate as an example of the countryside as a contested space. Having considered examples of the social and media aspects of the hunting debate, the chapter now considers an economic analysis of the hunting debate offered by Ward (1999). Ward (1999) assesses the economic significance of hunting to the UK economyconcluding that the arguments employed by the pro-hunting lobby have overstated their case and therefore 'foxed the nation'. ...
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Full-text available
... During recent decades, there has been debate over hunting in Europe, including its contribution to the rural economy [35]: hunting supporters claim that it is crucial for the livelihoods of rural people, but opponents disagree. Interestingly, a report from the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Affairs suggested that tourism related to nature in Spain (not including hunting) could represent from 12% to 29% of all tourism activity and had an overall economic impact of €8,600 million [36], not far from sport hunting. ...
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This paper reports an examination of the economic contribution to Spain provided by sport hunting. This paper identifies the main stakeholders, the overall expenses and contribution to the Spanish Gross Domestic Product (GDP), tax revenue, and the number of jobs supported. The results confirm that hunting can be considered a key economic activity for the Spanish environment and primary sector, and a measure combatting rural depopulation.
... Therefore, the future of game may depend more on the future management of agricultural landscapes than on any activity of the hunters themselves. Also, social attitudes to game species, and those who hunt them, will have a large impact on policies related to game conservation (Ward 1999;Anderson 2006). Should negative attitudes prevail, it will be difficult to justify public funds being spent on game management and conservation. ...
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