League Against Cruel Sports
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The League Against Cruel Sports is an animal welfare organisation that campaigns against blood sports such as fox hunting and hare coursing. It also seeks the regulation of greyhound racing and an end to commercial game shooting and trophy hunting.
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[edit] History
The League began in Morden, a suburb of London in 1923. Henry Amos raised a successful protest against rabbit coursing and was able to achieve a ban. This encouraged him to organise opposition to other forms of cruel sports and, in 1924, along with Ernest Bell, he established the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports. Although many blood sports such as bull, bear and badger baiting and cock fighting had already been outlawed, the laws only applied to domestic and captive animals. With the RSPCA unwilling to take action against hunting,[citation needed] Amos and Bell saw a need for an organisation that would campaign against what they regarded as cruel sports.
The first chairman of the League was Sir George Greenwood, who moved the following resolution at the inaugural public meeting: "This meeting registers its emphatic protest against all sports of hunting an animal to death for human pleasure and calls upon the Government to introduce legislation to prohibit such sports".
The following charter entitled "What We Stand For" was produced:
- Our Principle: that it is iniquitous to inflict suffering, either directly or indirectly, upon sentient animals for the purpose of Sport.
- We Condemn fox-hunting, otter-hunting, stag-hunting, hare-hunting and rabbit and hare-coursing, because they are organised forms of cruelty for pleasure, and, therefore, prejudicial to the best interests of the State.
- We Support and Recommend all clean humane forms of Sport, such as football, cricket, golf, running, swimming, scouting, hill-climbing, etc., etc.
- We Specially Recommend Drag-hunting as a substitute to hunting animals and we appeal to Hunts to adopt it. Also "hunting" Big Game with the Camera as Major Dugmore and others do.
- Blooding" Children: We protest against the insult offered in hunting circles, not only to the child-life of the nation but to the community in general, by smearing children's cheeks with blood from the brush or pads of a fox or other animal hunted to death, and we demand the cessation of this demoralising custom. We respectfully invite Religious, Education, Social Welfare, Humanitarian and allied bodies, by passing resolutions towards this end, to co-operate with us to make our demand effective.
[edit] Organisation
The League is a membership-based organisation that depends largely on legacies and direct mail packages to raise funds. The corporate structure includes both a charity and a limited company, because some of its party political campaigning would not be allowed under charity law.
[edit] Recent activities
The League supported the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act, passed in 2002 by the Scottish Parliament, and the Hunting Act 2004. Both laws make it illegal to chase fox with more than two dogs, but allow the use of two dogs (England) or a pack of dogs (Scotland) to flush fox to be shot. [1][2] Both laws allow the use of one terrier at a time below ground to flush a fox to be shot, if the owner of the terrier has written permission from the land owner or occupier to reduce fox populations in order to prevent or reducing serious damage to game birds or wild birds being kept on the land. The terrier must wear an electronic locator collar.
The League is currently campaigning against commercial breeding of non-native game birds for shooting, and against hunts that it believes are continuing to hunt wild mammals contrary to the 2004 ban. It also campaigns to extend hare coursing/fox hunting legislation from Scotland, England and Wales to Northern Ireland. In August 2006, it successfully undertook a private prosecution under the Hunting Act, because the police would not take action, against the huntsman of the Exmoor foxhounds, and argued that this showed that the Hunting Act was clear in its meaning. [3] This prosecution is currently under appeal.
[edit] Controversies
There has been some criticism of the League in the media. Former Executive Director James Barrington has noted, "Four previous LACS directors have now said publicly that a ban on hunting would be wrong - not the most comfortable fact for a pressure group dedicated to the abolition of hunting." [4]
[edit] Current leadership
The current President of the League Against Cruel Sport is actress [5] Annette Crosbie who has said: "When I think about it, I think humans are the nastiest species of animal on the planet ...". In the same interview she describes herself as "impatient, intolerant, judgmental, tactless — I'm not very nice, I'm really not. And if you don't do it my way, by God you'll be sorry." [1]
Crosbie says "We believe that nobody has the right to terrorise and kill animals for sport." [6] She supports the actions of animal rights activists, telling The Daily Mirror: "The campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences has been very clever — to frighten the banks into backing off is wonderful... Apart from rescuing animals they focus people's attention on what's going on. You cannot get politicians to pay attention until you get out on the streets and do something." [1]
