The Hunting Act 2004 was implemented to prevent anyone from intentionally allowing dogs to chase or hunt a wild mammal, including deer, foxes, otters and hares. The main purpose of Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust is to conserve, enhance and restore wildlife habitats and populations of species. Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust therefore does not support or allow field sports or hunting and we will never allow anyone to lay a drag or scent trail across our nature reserves. We will also challenge aspects of field sports and hunting where they can have a damaging impact on populations of wild animals and plants.
GWT has not and will never grant any new rights to hunt foxes with dogs or lay drag or scent trails on the land it owns. We will take action to ensure that hunting does not take place on any of our nature reserves, except in the very rare instances where a historic legal right cannot be legally overturned. On some GWT nature reserves, public bridleways exist which provide a legal thoroughfare for hunting groups; however, this does not confer any rights for hunting to take place on nature reserves. In these rare situations, GWT will make every effort to prevent access for riders and dogs off the public bridleway.
If members and visitors witness hunting with dogs on GWT nature reserves – or any other wildlife crime, we encourage them to notify us and/or the police immediately. All cases of illegal hunting reported and any instances of actionable trespass by hunting groups on our nature reserves will be reported to the police.
Through our numerous nature recovery projects, GWT works closely with landowners, farmers and the wider rural community, many of whom actively participate in field sports. Some of the views and activities of these landowners do not always reflect our own but it is only through collaboration and building these relationships together that we can achieve our objective of helping nature’s recovery.
We regret that, for legal reasons, GWT is unable to publicly comment on any ongoing investigations into reported incidents of suspected illegal hunting or actionable trespass.