We’ve had many successful ventures into rural england this season. We’ve disrupted hunts every Saturday from Sept-March (provided the hunts have been out), plus several weekdays. We’ve been as far as Cumbria, the Cotswolds and Essex to help out fellow sab groups. We’ve saved numerous hares & foxes, stopped several dig-outs (www.diggingout.org/) & even sabbed some bird shooting. We’ve not seen or known of a single kill while we’ve been at a hunt or shoot.

We started off the season by disrupting fox cub hunting in Sept at the Badsworth & Bramham Moor hunt. Here, one adult fox was hunted into an earth where it could take sanctuary, as the hunt wouldn’t have dared dig it out with us there, and we actively sabbed them all morning. We returned to the same hunt for our next two sabs only to be greeted by dozens of cops. Around 15 police vehicles were counted including an armed response unit. Arrests were made and CS spray was tested on sabs. But despite all this 2 young foxes were saved from the hounds!

Next up was the lesser sabbed Grove & Rufford hunt. Here the huntsman took one look at our brave crew, fled into a large wood and packed up after only a couple of hours.

Our next two jaunts found us in Lincolnshire, at the Blankney & Burton hunts. Both hunts move really fast but excellent tactics and tag teaming meant we stayed with them all day.

We next visited the High Peak Hare Harriers hunt. These tend to trail hunt when we attend and hunt hares when we don’t. For them this means waiting around for a trail to be laid, a short gallop and then a boring wait for the next trail. In the huntsman’s own words, it was like watching paint dry! No wonder they packed up early!

At the start of Nov we went back to the Grove & Rufford hunt with lots of new sabs. About two hours into a fairly uneventful day, we were kettled in by about 50 cops who held us for an hour and a half. This situation ended with 3 sabs being arrested, for alleged aggravated trespass, assault of a police officer & refusing to give details! We’ll see what the courts think of it all soon and can’t wait to see what evidence the cops come up with!

Next, we went North again to the Badsworth & Bramham Moor, and then to the Quorn hunt the following week. At the Quorn, three vehicles and lots of sabs had an amazing day of it. We kept the hunt moving, saving foxes that were thick on the ground throughout the day. Sabs particularly enjoyed watching blood pour from one redcoats’ nose after he came off his horse… Karma perhaps?

At the start of Dec we returned again to the Badsworth & Bramham Moor hunt who were hunting on foot from their kennels in 18 inches of snow! Sabs were genuinely amazed to see the hunt out in such conditions, although not for long as they took one look at 25 sabs descending on them and packed up!

A rare trip to the Barlow (who don’t normally hunt on Saturdays) followed. Conditions were extremely poor and the hunt didn’t show up at their meet, but we soon found them lurking at their kennels, getting ready to hunt on foot. They were extremely unhappy to see us and attempted to intimidate sabs, but failing at this called in the police. Despite this we managed to disrupt the hunt by taking the hounds for a run, when they were right under the huntsman’s nose! This made the hunt even more unhappy!

That Wednesday we visited the Blankney for their first hunt in six weeks (due to the weather). We stopped their terrier-men digging out a fox, even though they tried twice to return to it and continue! Needless to say, they gave up before we did.

After a few weeks off thanks to yet more snow, we sabbed the South Notts hunt, between Christmas and New Year. These are a violent bunch, but despite some ugly characters cruising around in pick-up trucks and amazingly heavy fog, we had a good day and the hunt only stayed out for 2 hours.

We had an almost disastrous day at the start of Jan, with 2 groups having vehicle problems, but still we managed a very decent sab at the Quorn hunt.

Next we went down to Essex to help out the local sabs. There we 60+ sabs out and we had a brilliant day, preventing 2 dig-outs and generally walking all over the hunt!

We were in Leicestershire the following week. Firstly we sabbed the Quorn hunt who pretty much rode straight back to their meet when we arrived. Then we went over to the Belviour hunt who haven’t had any attention in a long time. They stayed out till after dark, and made attempts at proper hunting, but luckily no foxes were spotted or hunted. We also sabbed a crow & pigeon shooter this day, who was out shooting with his imaginary friend and who agreed with our views on shooting – very strange!

At the end of Jan we sabbed a pheasant shoot in Yorkshire. The shooters initially refused to stop aiming for the skies and threatened to beat sabs with guns, but, after a little persuasion they all packed up. Not one shot was fired and any pheasants that would have been shot that day can breathe easy for a bit, because it was the last weekend of the pheasant shooting season. We then went on to successfully sab the Badsworth & Bramham Moor who were hunting down the road.

At the start of Feb we visited the South Wold hunt who did their best to hunt and hide in woodland all day. We stuck with them though and made sure they couldn’t kill.

On Feb 12th some of our number visited the High Peak Hare hunt locally and some travelled to Cumbria. It was the first time we had seen the High Peak hunt properly hunting. Although trail layers were present, they weren’t seen much, and the huntsman left his hounds to riot in a large semi-wooded valley for a good chunk of the day. Then later on he hunted fields near the meet. Hares were hunted throughout the day but luckily not killed. The Blencathera hunt were sabbed in Cumbria – not used to seeing so many sabs they weren’t up for hunting for very long!

Mid Feb we sabbed the Blankney hunt. We split into several groups to tackle this fast hunt which meant they literally couldn’t move without bumping into a group of sabs!

We then returned to the Badsworth & Bramham Moor hunt. There were 30 of us out and we worked in several separate groups, tag-teaming the hunt and keeping them moving & sabbed all day! We then sabbed them again on a Thursday and repeatedly took control of and distracted the hounds to ensure a kill free day.

Next we traveled down to the Cotswolds to help the Bristol & South Wales group with a violent hunt. They weren’t so violent when the saw 6 times the normal amount of sabs approaching the hunt meet, and they didn’t even try to hunt but hid all day instead!!

A mid week sab in Cumbria was next on the agenda. One sab fell on the fells at this hunt and needed a chopper ride to hospital, but despite this we managed to take the full pack of hounds from the huntsman while they were trying to hunt!

Around 60 sabs visited the Rockwood Harriers hunt on March 12th. Unsurprisingly these packed up as soon as the sabs caught up with them. The huntsman also told us that the 2 terrier men who had smashed up one of our vans last season had been fired from the hunt. Sabs then went on to the Badsworth & Bramham Moor hunt, joining one group that was already there, for this hunt’s last Saturday meet of the season. They were heard saying they were scared stiff as the masses approached, but they stayed out so as not to look it! They couldn’t hunt with so many sabs around them though, and all in all it was a successful day.

We finished the season down in the Cotswolds for another hit on the Cotswold Vale Farmers hunt. This week didn’t go as well as the other one as the police got in our way a fair bit. But the Nottingham group had fun taking the full pack of hounds from the huntsman, whilst under a police search! The hunt supporters literally had to carry the hounds away because sabs had such good control of them!!

So the season has finished now. We still haven’t put our feet up though as we’ll be busy fundraising, recruiting and running regular fitness & self deffence classes throughout the summer, protecting badgers with the South Yorkshire Badger Group from July, sabbing fox cub hunting from August, and we’ve got our eyes very much on Government plans to cull badgers in England & Wales this year.

We would always like to hear from anyone wanting to join one of our sab groups, help with fundraising, make a donation of money or equipment (eg maps), offer free/cheap vehicle repairs, offer info on bloodsports or just wanting some further information – so PLEASE get in touch!

Sab groups:

Nottingham- www.nottinghamhuntsabs.weebly.com

Sheffield- www.sheffieldsabs.weebly.com/

West Yorkshire- www.westyorkshirehuntsabs.wordpress.com/

Doncaster- (Contact via Sheffield group)

Manchester- www.nwhsa.org.uk/

Cumbria- Email vulpuscarlisle@yahoo.co.ukvulpuscarlisle@yahoo.co.uk”>

Hunt Saboteurs Association (for sab groups in other areas)- www.hsa.enviroweb.org/

Badger groups:

Coalition Of Badger Action Groups- www.badger-killers.co.uk/

South Yorkshire Badger Group- www.sybadgergroup.f9.co.uk/

We want to be here again, same time next year celebrating a run of no kill sabs, but our next season is already throwing out some challenges.

Three of our regular and dedicated, wonderful and committed Sabs are moving away. Thanks for all you’ve done guys. Our loss will be other group’s gain as they will still be causing trouble countryside-stylee but it does leave some spaces in team West Yorkshire. If you have ever wanted to give sabbing a try, or have sabbed before and want to come back out, please get in touch. The summer is a great time to get involved as you can get to know the group without any pressure and see if it’s for you.

Two of our hardest working fundraisers are suffering from long term ill health problems so we are also facing a loss to our ‘putting fuel in the van, replacing the tyres, MOT funding’ crew. Our bestest wishes for two super speedy recoverys – we can’t cope without you! We would love to here from you if cake baking, craft making, street stalls etc are something you could get into. It would also be great if you are able to raise money independently for us – chuck a vegan BBQ for your mates, put a gig on, get sponsors to stop smoking…whatever floats your boat.

Please email westyorkshuntsabs@yahoo.co.uk (facebook messages sometimes get lost in the spam)

Finally, we’d like to thank all you amazing people who send us donations. We know that times are hard, and that there are 101 charities and good causes asking for your cash. We are honoured that you picked us and can promise we didn’t waste a penny.

If anyone would like to keep up that old tradition of a tenner (or more!) in the birthday card, the details are on our website at:

http://westyorkshirehuntsabs.weebly.com/

We’d like to thank you all for the support we have had in our first year. We love you. The deer love you. The foxes love you. The bunnies and the hares love you. Mwah!

Email Contact email: westyorkshirehuntsabs@yahoo.co.uk

winning raffle ticket numbers are 431-435, 206-210 & 391-395
get in touch if you have a winning strip (security codes will be checked!)
if prizes are unclaimed by Christmas, we will re-raffle them, so check your tickets NOW!

We’d like to start off this update, by thanking everyone who contributed to our Landy appeal, to everyone who has sent us maps, donations, everyone who has made us food and sent us meets and information.

We started cubbing this season, with our very own Landy, we’ve found some new recruits and some people have found us!

We’ve been out every week since the second week of cubbing, we’ve hit hunts all over the north of England, and have managed to prevent any kills whilst we’ve been in attendance.

Unfortunately this year, we’ve seen much more police attention, and have had 6 arrests in our wider group, and 1 from West Yorkshire.

Despite the fact that hunting is illegal, and any chance of a repeal to the ban being set back at least until late 2011, the police still protect the hunters and the landowners.

So far this year we’ve pulled the hounds from a hare literally just inches away from a nasty end.

We’ve directly intervened and saved more than 10 foxes again from hounds in some cases inches away.

We’ve enjoyed taking control of various packs of hounds, using everything from high tech gizmos to shouting and playing the hunting horn.

We’ve had an amazing start to the season, BUT it could be better.

We’ve huge numbers at the minute, with some of our latest photos reminiscent of the 80s sab meets, attended by huge amounts of saboteurs.

With greater numbers comes greater flexibility, we can split into more groups, be more places, and pop up more often, even bringing the possibility of splitting the group and sabbing 2 hunts simultaneously.

so, why don’t YOU get involved?

What better time than now? What better place than Yorkshire?

We look after each other, and will explain what’s involved, brief you on the legal situations and answer any questions or concerns you have before you commit to coming out with us.

We’ve seen a fair few arrests this season, but with wrongful arrests comes the opportunity to sue the pants off the police.

Everyone who has been arrested with us this season has either been released with no further action taken, or has been bailed unconditionally pending further enquiry.

*(we also cover North and East Yorkshire, and can put people from further afield in touch with local groups)

If you don’t think you can support us in the field, then why not send us a donation or fund-raise for us?

It costs about £50 per day to take our Landy into the action, and to follow the hunt in it.

This soon adds up to obscene amounts of money.

We’ve a benefit gig this weekend (27th of November, at the gasworks in Bradford), and we’ve 2 more in the pipeline, for more information about any of our events visit our website -> http://westyorkshirehuntsabs.wordpress.com/events/

If you are interested in getting involved, come to one of our events,

email us ( westyorkshuntsabs@yahoo.co.uk ),

visit our website http://westyorkshirehuntsabs.wordpress.com/

to donate visit http://westyorkshirehuntsabs.wordpress.com/donate/

If you have any OS maps, Climbing rope, GPS equipment, essential oils, vehicles or anything else you want to donate, give us an email on the above.

Thanks for all of your support, Together we can save lives.

West Yorkshire Hunt Sabs.

Report – West Yorkshire Hunt Saboteurs

11^th of September 2010

Today We teamed up with Sheffield Sabs to hit a fairly local hunt, unfortunately the day had a terrible start, with quite a few people dropping out last minute (and us only getting Suzie roadworthy the day before!) but we improvised.

With only 6 of us in the field the day got much better, when as soon as we got out the van a lovely gentleman assured us if we went on his land “there will be blood”.

There was blood (in our legs as we ran past the fatty!)

At first it all looked a bit grim, but after the dogs loyalty for the huntsmen was shown up, we had them on the run.

Unfortunately, the sound of grown men making stupid high pitch noises broke the silence, as the hunt staff hollered (the noise to signal the location of a fox to the hounds), and sure enough a beautiful fox was darting past.

Some intense running, calling the hounds, masking the scent and making whip noises confused the dogs, as at the last minute they started chasing an old scent.

It was so close with the fox literally only a few feet away from the pack of hounds, and the huntsmen really trying hard to catch it.

A short while later the hunt had given up trying to find the fox (we know where it went!)

we ended up trying to follow the hunt into a covert (ironically on a footpath)

John the landowner (same guy as before) turned up on his quad and got a bit tasty.

Although his plan to attack all 6 of us at once was set up to fail, we decided to go the long way round in order to stop him having an even bigger temper tantrum!

We stayed with the hunt for most of the day, and they where never far away.

No kills thanks to our presences and the hunt even packed up a little early.

We hung around for a while to make sure they where packed up for the day, and nibbled on some lovely vegan sausage rolls and chocolate buns baked by one of our amazing hunt sab support group!

Many thanks Mrs S, they where just what you need on a stakeout!

All in all it was a good day, next week we’re expecting double the numbers, so will hopefully be able to take more pics, and hopefully we might have enough to actually film stuff, whilst others do the work!

So if you want to see us out in the field next week, send us some money!

We’re flat broke and need a few minor repairs on Suzie the sab van (and could do with sorting the bench seats out, so we can bring another 6 out with us).

We rely on donations to keep us going, our sabs often chip in what they can for fuel, but its expensive to drive around all day.

Thank you so much for helping us get out today, in just a few months we’ve got a Landy, insured it and got it into the action, saving lives.

We really couldn’t do this without you all, your kindness has been the secret of our success.

Much love and lots of respect,

West Yorkshire Hunt Sabs

To donate please click here http://westyorkshirehuntsabs.wordpress.com/donate/

to visit our website click here http://westyorkshirehuntsabs.wordpress.com/

Hello to you all again,
We’ve been busy recently, and have prepared this article to tell all our friends and supporters what we’ve been up too!

This Weekend we held our first “sab camp”, We held it in a picturesque field in North Yorkshire (thank you for letting us use it Mr & Mrs S! It was lovely).

The weekend was very educational, with workshops on our tactics and a legal workshop (police beware – we know our rights!), with lovely healthy vegan food included in the price of the weekend it was a bargain, and thanks to everyone chipping in with the work effort, everybody had a great time!
We also enjoyed many sessions of “Giant Jenga” to keep us entertained and a game of rounders to keep us fit!

In the evening we also enjoyed some tunes from several artists (all sabs or sabs in training!) and enjoyed some world class sing along action around the campfire!

Thanks to sally for bringing the giant Jenga, thanks to Liz for doing the cooking, secret Sue for the legal talk, “big H” for driving the shuttle bus and thanks to everybody who came and made the weekend such a success.

To make our weekend even better, We also managed to get our hands on the new land rover we’ve been trying to get!
Suzie the Sab Van (named after Sue T, who has donated lots of money to us regularly since day 1 – many thanks Sue!) is a beautiful machine, at the moment she only seats 6, but as soon as we have the money we’re going to stick 2 bench seats in the back, bumping her up to 12!
She’s in full working order, and she’s already MOT’d and we’ve already got her taxed.
All we need now is money for insurance, fuel and to add the extra seats (we also owe a very nice man £20, as it was £20 over our budget in the end).
So once again I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask for your help, but that’s the nature of a donation run group!
If you want to see 6 more sabs out on Saturday, send us some money via our paypal, and if you want to see 12 more sabs out on Saturday, send us even more!
We’re sorry that we seem to be always asking for money, but now we have our transport, once its insured we’ll be able to go out and save lives, and thanks to the loan of some old digital cameras we should be able to start showing you some good news with pretty photos that make us look awesome!

Its inevitable that sabs will have to put hand in pocket for fuel, that happens nearly every year, but we can manage with that, so long as you kind lovely people help us out along the way.
You can donate on our paypal → http://westyorkshirehuntsabs.wordpress.com/donate/
and can now “sponsor a sab” or donate regularly (automatically) →http://westyorkshirehuntsabs.weebly.com/
And if your interested in buying any postcards made by local artists email us → westyorkshuntsabs@yahoo.co.uk
some very kind people also have a benefit gig in the pipeline for us, stay tuned on our website for details.

We’d like to thank you all for everything you have done for us, you have shown that people are prepared to take and support Direct Action in the face of repressive laws and unfair policing.
Together we can save lives, and show the world that we’re not prepared to sit back and watch as the hunts continue to destroy communities, kill animals and live above the law.
Thank you once more for all of your support,
West Yorkshire Hunt Sabs

West Yorkshire Hunt Sabs have been fund-raising for a new vehicle, so far we have raised £2,450

but we need to raise more to get a vehicle.

With the cub hunting season literally just about to start, We have to accept the fact that we will have to start the season sharing the van with Sheffield as we have done before.

With the Torys promising a hunting ban repeal, and recent anti-fox propaganda swaying public opinion, the hunters and support are going to be in undoubtedly high spirits.

With the 12 extra sabs and the flexibility an extra land rover provides we could really make a difference to the amount we can do.

A cheap but well working second hand land rover will cost at least £3,000.

We are also going to need the money to pay the tax and insurance on the vehicle.

Again realistically, our sabs are probably going to have to put a fair bit of their own money into the vehicle to get it up and running, and for fuel once we have it, but our sabs are unsurprisingly predominantly working low-wage jobs.

So we REALLY need your help.

 What we really need is the cash to make this happen, we CAN save lives through direct action, we just need to be able to get where it is happening (and get out again in 1 piece).

Please support us by donating http://westyorkshirehuntsabs.wordpress.com/donate/

or by setting up a regular donation http://westyorkshirehuntsabs.weebly.com/

You can also Sponsor a sab, for details pleas click the same link.

 For more information about what this vehicle will mean to us please see our original appeal http://westyorkshirehuntsabs.wordpress.com/2010/07/22/we-need-a-landrover/

 and for information about what we’ve done in the past (our action reports) please visit

http://westyorkshirehuntsabs.wordpress.com/what-weve-done-action-reports/

 Thank You for all your support (keep it coming)

West Yorkshire Hunt Sabs

We have 3 designs, 2 by Martha Snee.

Martha Snee is a young, up and coming local artist, from Leeds.
We look forward to seeing Martha in the sab van when she’s old enough.

fox – by Martha Snee
Email us to order – Westyorkshuntsabs@yahoo.co.uk

Hare – By Martha Snee
Email to order – Westyorkshuntsabs@yahoo.co.uk

And also we have this design by international graffiti artist Drokk.
Drokk travels the world causing trouble and righting wrongs, and during his last trip to the UK, Drokk joined our Sab group and he has promised to come out with us again next time he’s here.
More of Drokk’s work can be found here – http://holydrokk.blogspot.com/

please get in touch If you want to buy some postcard sized prints, £6 for 6 extra large postcards,
Mix and match or pick what you want.

Email us to order ( westyorkshuntsabs@yahoo.co.uk)
Payment by paypal, UK postage included.

Support Our Sabs! – Land Rover Appeal

With all the bad news for wildlife that comes with the recent election, we want to do something good. We’re trying to raise around £5000 to buy a new Land Rover for our group.
For the last 3 years we’ve been piling our Sabs over to Sheffield every week.
Buying a Land Rover would double the number of Sabs we can get out in Yorkshire,
and make travelling a lot easier.

We need YOUR help to make this happen; we need people to help us with fund-raising, and we also need people to make some donations. (Credit and Debit cards now accepted via our Paypal).

When Cameron repeals the hunting ban, we’re going to need to step up the fight against hunting, an extra 12 Sabs and the manoeuvrability of an extra vehicle will give us a much needed edge to carry on the work we do.

We NEED your help though, so far we have raised £2,000. We’re going to need around another £3,000 to get a decent vehicle and tax and insure it. (Not to mention fuel…)

PLEASE help us get out in the field.
We need,
1)Money and lots of it!
2)People to help us fund-raise
3)People willing to do some fund-raising independently and send us the money (whip round at work, do a sponsored walk, sell some cakes to your friends, whatever!)
4)Businesses willing to let us have a donation bucket in their shops
5)If all goes to plan – people to fill the spaces in our lovely new Landy!
6)We also need some more sabbing equipment, please see the * section at the bottom of the post for more details.

West Yorkshire Hunt Sabs use non-violent Direct Action to stop hunters killing animals.
We use tactics that do not hurt any animals (including hunt dogs and horses), and are non-violent and non-confrontational, however we will defend ourselves if we are attacked.
We go out every Saturday, and hopefully with our new vehicle we’ll be able to do even more midweeks than last season! (hunters beware)

You can find more information about us, look at our reports from the last season, and you can Donate on our website → http://westyorkshirehuntsabs.wordpress.com/

If your interested in getting involved either as a supporter, fund-raiser, driver or as a Hunt Sab please contact us at westyorkshuntsabs@yahoo.co.uk (If you want to sab but don’t live near us contact the Hunt Saboteurs Association: info@huntsabs.org.uk to find your local group).

*We also need some other items we would prefer not to buy, please get in contact if you can donate us any old; OS maps,
essential oils (especially Citronella and Eucalyptus but we can try others) ,
2 way Radios/Mobile phones,
cameras/camcorders,
old climbing rope (for making a whip cracking noise),
fancy GPS equipment (it’s worth a try).

If you believe that wealthy landowners riding round on horses, hunting innocent animals for fun and tradition is wrong,
PROVE IT, get involved and help us SAVE LIVES.

Click HERE to see our progress on the ‘Landy’o'Meter’

Click HERE to donate

well done to Lizzie T. (aged 7) from sheffield! The fantastic fox is yours! We hope you take good care of him, he can’t wait to meet you.

In other news we’ve some fundraising events in the pipe line, so get in touch if your interested in helping us, alot of our emails end up in peoples spam boxes, so if you contact us and don’t get a reply, check your spam box!