Cheldon Buckhounds May 22nd 1993

This film shows Roe deer hunting by the North Devon based Cheldon Buckhounds long before the hunting ban. It was taken on May 22nd 1993 by Kevin Hill monitoring for the League Against Cruel Sports. (The film date in the camera is wrong - this was after this camera had been roughly handled by other hunters during other monitoring work.) A Roe buck was hunted for miles and eventually, exhausted, it tried to find sanctuary in St John's wood, a wildlife sanctuary owned by Paul McCartney. Sadly the deer's escape was blocked by a six foot high fence erected by hunters precisely for the purpose of stopping their victims escaping in this way. Here hunter Jeremy Gibbs is seen sitting on the injured deer. He did so for some 15 minutes that Kevin Hill witnessed before another hunter drove up in a Landrover and out of sight of Kevin the deer was killed. A large pool of blood was left at the scene. Hunters always claim that their victims are killed quickly. One can but guess at the terror inflicted on this poor creature after being hunted over miles and then being pinned to the ground in this way. This film is made available here by the Animal Welfare Information Service: www.acigawis.org.uk