“Dangerous and divisive”: owners whose dogs chase squirrel risk imprisonment from latest attempt to ban hunting
Rural campaigners have hit out over a fresh attempt to ban hunting with dogs in Northern Ireland, warning the proposed legalisation risks criminalising anyone involved in any countryside activity if their dog chases a wild mammal.
On Monday evening (27 4 26) a bill to ban hunting was re-introduced nearly five years after it was first rejected by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
The private member’s bill is once again being brought by the Alliance Party’s John Blair, but Countryside Alliance Ireland has described it as “dangerous and divisive”.
The organisation says the bill would do nothing for animal welfare but would have a detrimental effect on farming and biodiversity, making predator control almost impossible, posing a grave risk to livestock and ground nesting birds.
Countryside Alliance Ireland director Gary McCartney said people living and working in the countryside were facing “damaging attacks on their livelihoods and local economies”.
He added it was “staggering Mr Blair deems this a priority during a cost-of-living crisis and at a time when the health service is on its knees”.
McCartney urged politicians to focus on “issues that help rural people rather than harming them”.
“This misguided bill is a major threat to anyone taking part in any activity where a dog may end up chasing a squirrel or any other wild mammal.
“It could see farmers, gamekeepers and ramblers imprisoned or fined or both”.
In 2021, a previous bill championed by Mr Blair was defeated by 45 votes to 38. Sinn Féin whipped its assembly members (MLAs) to vote against the legislation, saying it supported regulation over a complete ban.
Last Friday, Sinn Féin members at the party’s annual Ard Fheis (conference) voted by a tight margin to support a ban on fox hunting “for the sole purpose of leisure”, but not for pest control.
There are concerns that this policy could affect the party’s rural vote. Mr McCartney urged Sinn Féin MLAs to “think very carefully about the damage support of this dangerous bill could have on rural people”.
At the time of the previous vote, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) held the agriculture and environment brief in the Northern Ireland Executive and its then-minister Edwin Poots said he would not back the bill either.
The bill was also opposed by the Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU).
In reference to the Bill’s wording: “risks criminalising anyone involved in any countryside activity if their dog chases a wild mammal”.
23A.—(1) For the purposes of this Part a person participates in—
(a) hunting a wild mammal using one or more dogs,
(b) trail hunting,
(c) terrier work,
whether or not the person is responsible for controlling any dog used.
(2) In paragraph (1), the reference to participation includes a reference to
participation in another activity (such as pursuit by a dog of an artificial or
human scent) in the course of which a dog hunts a wild mammal.
The Countryside Alliance Ireland maintain that “in the explanatory notes provided, John Blair wrongly states: ‘a person is not hunting if they are walking their dog and their dog happens to pick up a scent and chases after it’.
“This contradicts the bill and it is the bill that the courts will look at to determine guilt, not Mr Blair’s explanatory notes.”
