Stag Hunting, THE EXISTING LAW, AND WHAT MUST CHANGE TO PROTECT THE STAGS
Background
A number of “exemptions” within the Hunting Act 2004 (HA 2004) have been (and continue to be) used in ways that allow stag hunts effectively to circumvent the legislation, often with little consequence. This is due to the broad nature of the exemptions and the vagueness of their wording.
Poor enforcement by the police and limited success in prosecutions by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have further contributed to weak adherence to the legislation.
With some exemptions seemingly relied upon more than others, the landscape of stag hunting remains difficult to curtail. Stag hunts continue to meet and hunt regularly, with the end result being the loss of life of many stags.
Police don’t appear interested in prosecuting stag hunts under the present law, even though there is significant doubt that they are acting legally.
Stag Hunt Organisation and Activities
The Masters of Deerhounds Association (their governing body) consists of three packs of staghounds. All three are registered stag-hunting packs based in the south-west of England:
- Devon & Somerset Staghounds, which hunt within Exmoor National Park;
- Quantock Staghounds, which hunt on the Quantock and Brendon Hills to the east of Exmoor; and
- Tiverton Staghounds, which hunt the valleys of the Exe, Taw and Torridge.
A typical stag hunt operates as follows. Members of the hunt gather, with various roles assigned:
- Harbourer – this person often goes out in the days or nights preceding the hunt to identify a suitable stag and its location.
- Gun carriers – who carry firearms used at the end of the hunt.
- Field Master – who guides and manages the hunt.
- Hunt Masters – responsible for the overall management and conduct of the hunt, often liaising with landowners.
- Whipper-ins – responsible for keeping the pack together.
- Huntsman – who directs the hunt and controls the pack.
- The Field – a collective term for mounted followers of the hunt.
- Foot Followers – quad bikes, 4X4 drivers and passengers and people on foot. These people are instrumental in the hunt and often turn the stag to make sure he goes where they want him to go.
What happens on a stag hunt
The stag is pre-selected by a person called a harbourer. This can take place up to a week before the hunt. The meet, (where those who are taking part in the hunt meet up before the hunt starts), may be a very quick affair or a long drawn out session with drinks and nibbles. Hounds are then taken to find the harboured stag.
Once the stag is separated from the others, he is chased to exhaustion by both hounds and by hunt followers. The hunt usually continues for several hours.
The hunt followers’ job is to watch (sometimes from high points) where the stag runs and point him out to the hunt, so they don’t lose him. They also clap and shout at the stag to force him to go in a particular direction – wherever the hunt wants him to go.
In most cases, two hounds are used and swapped regularly. At least one vehicle follows the hunt with spare hounds in it. Certainly though more than two hounds have been filmed hunting stags in breach of all exemptions. Hounds hunt by scent with noses to the ground but may course (i.e hunt by sight) when they are very close to their prey. There are many reports of deer, especially hinds being pulled down by the hounds, even being eaten alive by them.
When the stag can run no longer, he stops. Sometimes he defends himself with his antlers, injuring hounds. When he is stationary, he is shot.
In all cases both stags and hinds are butchered post mortem. The throat is slit to bleed the carcass out The slots, (hooves), teeth, head and other body parts are given out as trophies. The organs given out for followers to eat and the venison also given to whoever to sell, eat. The intestines, any unborn fetus and other parts humans do not eat are the reward of the hounds. Post “ban” the difference is that the carve up will happen somewhere out of the public eye rather than where the deer was shot.
The Law as It Applies to Stag Hunts, and the Exemptions
Hunting Act 2004
Under Section 1, a person commits an offence if they hunt a wild mammal with a dog unless the hunting is exempt in accordance with Schedule 1 of the HA 2004.
Under Section 11(1), a wild mammal includes:
-
- a wild mammal which has been bred or tamed for any purpose;
- a wild animal which is in captivity or confinement;
- a wild animal which has escaped or been released from captivity or confinement; and
- any mammal living wild.
Section 11(2) states that a reference to a person who hunts a wild mammal with a dog includes cases where that person: (a) engages or participates in the pursuit of a wild mammal; and (b) employs one or more dogs for that pursuit (whether or not by them and whether or not under their control or direction).
Under Section 3, a person commits an offence if they knowingly permit land belonging to them to be entered or used in the course of the commission of an offence under Section 1. A person also commits an offence if they knowingly permit a dog belonging to them to be used in the course of the commission of such an offence. As such, evidence of interests in land can be relevant.
There is a defence to hunting where it can be shown that a person reasonably believed the hunting to be exempt (Section 4).
The Exemptions – The Parts of the Law That Stag Hunts Abuse
Exempt hunting is set out in Schedule 1. The first, eighth and ninth exemptions are the most relevant to wild stag hunting.
The First Exemption: Stalking or Flushing Out
This exemption applies only if all of the following conditions are met.
First condition – it is undertaken for one of the following purposes: (a) preventing or reducing serious damage that the wild mammal would otherwise cause to livestock, game birds, wild birds, food for livestock, crops, growing timber, fisheries, other property, or the biological diversity of an area; (b) obtaining meat for human or animal consumption; or (c) participation in a field trial (a competition in which dogs flush animals out of cover or retrieve animals that have been shot, or both).
Second condition – it takes place on land: (a) belonging to the person carrying out the stalking or flushing out; or (b) which they have permission to use from the occupier, or from the owner in the case of unoccupied land.
Third condition – no more than two dogs are used.
Fourth condition – the activity does not involve the use of a dog below ground (not relevant to stag hunting).
Fifth condition – reasonable steps are taken to ensure that, as soon as possible after being found or flushed out, the wild mammal is shot dead by a competent person. Each dog must be kept under sufficiently close control.
The Eighth Exemption: Rescue of a Wild Mammal
An injured wild mammal may be hunted for the purpose of relieving its suffering, but only by one dog kept under sufficiently close control. Appropriate action must be taken to relieve suffering as soon as possible thereafter. The hunter must reasonably believe the wild mammal is injured or may be injured. A wild mammal cannot be harmed in order to rely on this exemption, and landowner permission is required.
The Ninth Exemption: Research and Observation
Hunting is exempt if undertaken for the purpose of, or in connection with, the observation or study of a wild mammal. No more than two dogs may be used, and they must be kept under sufficiently close control to ensure they do not injure the wild mammal. Landowner permission is required.
Penalties
Section 6 sets out the penalties for offences under the HA 2004. All offences are summary-only, with a maximum penalty of a level 5 fine (unlimited).
How the Exemptions Are Abused
What stag hunts do to avoid prosecution is relatively simple. When observed, they usually use only two dogs at a time, while keeping additional dogs in vehicles to be used in relay. When challenged, they claim an exemption on the basis that no more than two dogs are in use at any one time.
For the rescue exemption, which permits only one dog, similar arguments are made.
No other meaningful changes are made to the way hunts operate.
- No scientific outputs are produced to support claims of research or observation.
- Hunts cannot know whether a stag is infected with bovine tuberculosis, despite claiming this as justification.
- No artificial trails are laid; instead, stags are chased across large areas of land, often ending in rivers.
Stag Hunt Prosecutions
The Observed to Death report (see link at end) details a number of case studies. In proceedings against the Quantock Staghounds in 2006–2007, the exemption of stalking and flushing out was relied upon. The accused were convicted of offences under the HA 2004, and their subsequent appeals were dismissed.
District Judge Parsons described the defence as disingenuous and fined both defendants £500, ordering them to pay £1,000 towards costs. He concluded that the primary purpose of the hunt was “sport and recreation, preserving a way of life that the participants and the defendants are not prepared to give up”. He further stated that the defendants were “disingenuous in attempting to deceive me into believing they were exempt hunting”.
The judge also noted that this was a continual act of hunting over a period of two and three-quarter hours, with deer encountered in the first flush also present at the final flush, and that dogs may have been deployed in relay to use fresh dogs to chase the deer faster.
Identified Problems which might limit any change in the law
- Deer culling is sometimes considered necessary, and stag hunts justify their actions on this basis.
- Injured deer sometimes need to be humanely dispatched, and tracker dogs are used for this purpose.
- Tracker dogs are trained using deer scent.
- Any reform must allow for these realities without opening further loopholes.
- Stag hunts exercise disproportionate control over the areas in which they operate.
The Badgworthy Land Company (associated with the Devon and Somerset Staghounds) owns sporting rights across large areas of Exmoor. This allows hunting on land without the occupier’s permission. The company also owns substantial areas of private land, enabling hunts to take place out of public view.
The British Deer Society has expressed concern about banning the use of animal scent, as this would affect dog training. They do not support stag hunting with hounds and consider it inhumane.
Suggested Changes to the Law
- Remove all exemptions, particularly research and observation.
- Introduce very strict conditions for searching for and dispatching injured deer, potentially involving police oversight.
- Ban the use of stag hounds, foxhounds, harriers, beagles and mink hounds from pursuing wild mammals for any reason at all.
- Make it completely illegal to chase a stag with a hunt dog, or with more than one dog, in any circumstances.
- Permit only non-hunt dog breeds (e.g. labradors or spaniels) for locating injured deer, and only as a last resort.
- Prohibit mounted followers.
- Require police permission before using a dog to locate a stag.
- Encourage the use of alternative technologies such as drones and night-vision equipment.
- Ban the stag hunts as organisations.
Further work may be required to address the use of vehicles and foot followers in pursuing stags if dogs are banned.
Anticipating the stag hunts’ defence
At present, under the Hunting Act 2004, the exemptions provide the stag hunts with all the defence they need.
Additionally, if caught, stag hunts don’t need to prove beyond a doubt that they were hunting under an exemption. All they need to say is this (for example): “We were researching and observing” and maybe “We took a sample of the deer’s blood after we shot it.” As the Hunting Act 2004 does not give any detail about what “research and observation” actually IS, the defence can stop there.
If the hunt took place on land owned by the hunt, or on land where they had permission to be, then police are unlikely to pursue the investigation.
This issue was discussed in DPP v Wright. The Divisional Court held that where a defendant seeks to rely on an exemption, an evidential burden rests on the defence. The defendant must raise a genuine issue (more than speculation) that the hunting was exempt. Once this is done, the burden shifts to the prosecution to prove that the exemption does not apply.
The prosecution does not need to disprove every condition of an exemption—failure to meet any single condition renders the exemption unavailable.
Importantly, the judgment makes clear that suspects should be asked in interview for details of any claimed exemption. Failure to provide such details early can lead to adverse inferences, adjournments, punitive costs orders, and rebuttal evidence being heard last at trial.
If any new exemptions are permitted in the new law (and this may happen, given the apparent need for culling and finding injured deer), the burden of proof must clearly be laid on the defence and not the prosecution. The defence must prove beyond any doubt that there were exempt hunting. If the burden of proof stays as it is, the stag hunts will abuse any new exemptions and police are unlikely to investigate if the chance of conviction is low.
Summary of Discussion with the British Deer Society
The British Deer Society exists to protect deer and allow them to flourish. They support culling, but not stag hunting.
We asked them the following questions:
- How are deer culled humanely?
- How is the number and selection of deer for culling determined?
- Would banning trail hunting impact humane deer management?
The necessity of culling was not challenged, as it was not central to the discussion.
How Culls Are Determined
Landowners carry out annual deer censuses to assess population size and land capacity, taking into account farming, forestry, birth rates and road traffic collisions. From this, cull numbers and proportions are determined (e.g. 60% young, 20% old, 20% sick).
Landowners employ individuals or companies to carry out the cull. Deer are shot in accordance with strict firearms regulations. While there is no legal requirement for marksmen to be formally trained, the minimum qualification is typically Deer Stalking Certificate (DSC) Level 1.
Culling is carried out on a continuous basis to minimise stress to herds, rather than in large-scale, sudden operations.
Banning trail hunting (ie outlawing the use of animal scent) might prevent the humane dispatch of injured deer.
Deer are often injured on roads, and run off into fields/woods etc. A trained marksman needs to track down the deer in order to dispatch it, and they often use a dog to find the injured deer. The dogs are usually trained by laying a trail of deer scent for them to follow.
Links and Contacts
Badgworthy Land Company — https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/00218403 This is the Devon and Somerset Staghounds by another name. Huge landowners.
The British Deer Society – contact Charles Smith-Jones. https://bds.org.uk/
The British Deer Society’s position on Hunting with Hounds
https://bds.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/BDS-Position-Paper-Hunting-deer-with-hounds.pdf
Further reading about stag hunting
Bateson Report 2003 https://www.jstor.org/stable/51105 Commissioned by the National Trust, this report scientifically examines the effect of hunting on red deer. It led to the banning of stag hunting on all National Trust land in 1997.
Written by the League Against Cruel Sports, Observed to Death looks at the “research and observation” exemption used by the stag hunts.
Written by Hounds Off in 2019, this report provides case studies for illegal hunting, animal cruelty and trespass.
Action Against Staghunting report by Advocates for Animals on the current position with stag hunting and the law. https://actionagainststaghunting.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2023-10-03-Advice-re-stag-hunting.pdf
Sporting Rights Advice from Barrister https://actionagainststaghunting.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Sporting-Rights-legal-opinion.pdf
Sporting Rights – Advocates for Animals clarified it for us https://actionagainststaghunting.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Review-of-Counsels-Opinion-regarding-Badgeworthy-Land-Company-Ltd-and-The-Hunting-Act-2004.pdf
The Deer Act https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1991/54/contents The Deer Act puts further restrictions on deer hunting. In particular – it’s illegal to use a vehicle to chase a deer.
Wild Mammals (Protection) Act 1996 (WMPA 1996) https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1996/3/contents
Firearms Act 1968. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/27/contents
Animal Welfare Act 2006 (AWA) https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/45/contents