According to the Hunting Act, which was introduced in February 2005 in England and Wales (having been passed in November 2004), “a person commits an offence if he hunts a wild mammal with a dog, unless his hunting is exempt”.
There are many exemptions, particularly with regard to protecting crops, livestock and property from wild mammal ‘pests’ but, in essence, the act renders the traditional sport of hunting foxes with hounds illegal in Britain. (Scotland introduced the similar Protection of Wild Mammals Act in 2002 but replaced this with the Hunting with Dogs Act in 2023.)
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But in Northern Ireland, fox hunting is still legal, although in May 2025 a new bill to ban the practice was proposed and passed the first stage of voting, with 113 in favour and 49 against. The second stage of The Animal Health and Welfare Bill is due to be debated in late December 2025.
However, you may be surprised that on many days throughout the hunting season, which lasts from 1 November to late April, red-clad horsemen and women can still be seen out in the British countryside with packs of foxhounds.
One of the biggest days in the rural social calendar is the Boxing Day Hunt, where hunters meet in rural towns and villages on 26 December before heading out into the countryside in pursuit.
But, if hunting with hounds is illegal, what is the quarry? Most hunts these days use trail hunting where, some hours before the hunt sets out, a line of scent is laid down comprising “an ethically sourced, quarry-based scent based on fox urine”, according to the Countryside Alliance, an organisation that campaigns for field sports such as fox hunting.
The hunters follow the trail instead of chasing live foxes. (Drag hunting is different to trail hunting as it uses an artificially laid scent that mounted riders and hounds follow on a pre-planned route.)
But trail hunting is controversial. While pursuing the scent, foxhounds may accidentally come across live foxes and pursue them. Opponents of fox hunting, such as the League Against Cruel Sports (LACS), go further, claiming that trail hunting is often a pretext for live hunting. From August 2024 to April 2025, LACS says it recorded 397 incidents of foxes being chased among “1,591 reports of suspected illegal hunting and havoc caused by hunts”.
Since the Hunting Act was passed, there have been over 500 prosecutions for illegal hunting, but relatively few of these are for fox hunting and the hunts strongly deny wrongdoing. LACS points out that it is hard to police the open countryside and claims that hunters use the act’s many exemptions to shed doubt on the ‘intent’ to hunt.
Government law says that “It’s illegal to hunt foxes with a pack of dogs. You can use dogs to simulate hunting, for example ‘drag’ or ‘trail’ hunting. You can use up to two dogs to chase (‘flush’ or ‘stalk’) foxes out of hiding if the fox is causing damage to your property or the environment”. LACS also says that the modest fines handed out do not act as a deterrent.
Some opponents of fox hunting, frustrated with a perceived lack of enforcement of the act, take matters into their own hands. The Association of Hunt Saboteurs actively attempts to disrupt fox hunts, sometimes leading to violent encounters between hunt supporters and opponents.
Though the Hunting Act remains deeply unpopular in parts of rural Britain, there appears to be little support for fox hunting as a sport in the wider population according to a YouGov poll of November 2024 – 79% of those polled supported the ban while 10% opposed it.
