Shocking footage appearing to show foxes being fed to baying hounds during hunts have been released.
Animal rights activists shared a horrific showreel they claim highlights practices which are deeply ingrained in the fox-hunting community.
The League Against Cruel Sports video shows a fox fed to the dogs after being legally flushed out, the Daily Record reported.
It follows another video published two weeks ago in which a man was seen tossing a fox to dogs and encouraging them to rip it apart at a hunt in Howwood, Renfrewshire.
Robbie Marsland, spokesperson for the League Against Cruel Sports, said the footage showed that the cruelty involved in fox hunting is alive and well, despite the law banning the dogs from hunting down the animals in the traditional way.
Mr Marsland said: “If hunts were obeying the law, the dogs would be used to flush a fox from cover where it could then be shot – but where’s the fun in that?
“Traditional hunting celebrates the suffering and the kill. Throwing dead foxes to dogs ensures they continue to have the taste for blood, and subsequently the desire to kill.
“The footage shows that hunters are not ready to give this element of their sport up.
“It is just one of the routine and systematic ways the pro-hunting lobby uses to try to keep their cruel sport alive.”
The three latest incidents documented include the Fife Hunt, Lindores, in March 2019, the Duke of Buccleuch Hunt in the Borders in March 2020, and the Berwickshire Hunt in Abbey St Bathans in November 2017.
Each shows a dead fox being thrown to a pack of dogs.
Although fox hunting with dogs was banned in Scotland in 2002, an unlimited number of dogs are allowed to chase foxes from cover so they can be shot.
Glasgow Hunt Sabs said members watched a fox being driven towards a line of guns and shot dead during the Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire Hunt.
The group claimed they watched a “legal kill facilitated by illegal actions”, saying hunting laws were breached when the animal was chased by hounds over open ground.
They said: “If it’s not illegal, it’s morally disgusting. Surely this isn’t pest control.”
In April, the Scottish Greens called for a total ban on fox hunting, saying loopholes must be closed to put a stop to all “cruel” killings by hunts with dogs.
The three hunts were approached for comment.
