England: Prison sentence for sadistic recreational hunter
A recreational hunter in England received a 22-week prison sentence for torturing a fox caught in a cage.
A recreational hunter in England received a 22-week prison sentence for torturing a fox caught in a cage.
Animal fights filmed on mobile phone
John Thomas Gough also received a lifetime ban on keeping animals after admitting his guilt in organising animal fights and causing unnecessary suffering to animals, reports the Stourbridge News.
During the trial, it emerged that the recreational hunter had filmed the animal fights on a mobile phone and could be heard egging on his two hunting dogs.
A further video shows the tortured fox being released from the cage and brutally attacked by his dogs. The incident took place in the garden of his home on 16 May 2017.
House search uncovered evidence
The charges against the recreational hunter followed a house search carried out by the local animal welfare organisation RSPCA and local police after receiving a tip-off.
During the search, videos and images of the animal fights were discovered on the recreational hunter's mobile phone. A fox trap and further equipment used for fox hunting were also found in his home. In his car, police found fox tails, cages for hunting dogs, and shovels.
A spokesperson for the animal welfare organisation said: «We do not know what happened to the fox in this horrific attack. The two hunting dogs were also not found on the premises.»
An expert confirmed, based on the videos, that the fox had suffered severely and sustained open, bleeding injuries. More on crime and recreational hunting.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier Poaching and hunting crime in Switzerland we document cases, legal questions and recurring patterns. What the research says about this is shown by Hunting fact-checked: the state of research.
The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.
