TEACHING hounds to follow the scent of a fox instead of the actual animal is turning out to be rather hit and miss for most hunts.
Huntsmen have spent the past few weeks testing ways to distil a scent that the hounds can pick up, ensuring that their hunt is lawful. Hunting live foxes is now illegal.
Yesterday Julian Barnfield, of the Cotswold Hunt, was finalising his plans to lay a trail for the 150-strong hunt to follow in the countryside between Cheltenham and Cirencester. The preparations, are not for the faint-hearted.
The Council of Hunting Associations has decided that while legal challenges to the ban continue, the hounds should retain their ability to sniff out the fox. Therefore instead of using artificial scents such as aniseed, which is commonly used in draghunts, the aim was to re-create as far as possible the scent of a real fox.
Mr Barnfield’s first effort was to soak rags in a chemical called oil of rodium, which one of the hunt masters had found in an ancient book on hunting. The rag was then attached to a 15-yard string and dragged through fields. But the hounds could not pick up the trail.
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The next attempt was to leave two fox carcasses in a drum, fill it with water and leave the substance to putrify for three to four weeks. The stench was strong but not overbearing and rags were soaked in the liquid. “It still didn’t work,” said Mr Barnfield.
“Then we decided to drag a dead fox on a trail. I was always against it and thought it was far too gory. Thankfully that didn’t work either.”
The only experiment that has worked was mixing the putrified water from the fox carcasses with fox urine removed from the carcasses’ bladders. The hounds immediately picked up the scent.
Meanwhile it has emerged that the police will have to collect fox droppings as evidence if they are to prove any hunts are operating illegally.
The instructions from the Crown Prosecution Service were issued after The Times disclosed on Thursday that police had not received guidance on how to enforce the ban.
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Half a million people are preparing to take part in hunts today. Huntsmen were nervous last night about whether this form of hunting is going to work or land them in trouble. Nevertheless, they are anxious to test the law.
Anti-hunt campaigners are determined to expose law breaking and are fielding hunt monitors covertly to selected hunts. Members of the public are also being urged by the League Against Cruel Sports to give information and evidence against any hunt involved in unlawful activity.