Countryside Alliance - Campaign Strategy

[Lamper121 239]

Dear All,

 

I'm sure most of you received the email from Barney White-Spunner from the CA in response to the SNP's U-Turn. I'm not currently a member of the CA and to be honest I was a bit disappointed that the CAs campaign seems to be concentrated just on Fox-Hunting with a pack of hounds. Anyway I thought I'd email my thoughts to Tim Bonner at the CA and here is the response I got for those of you who are interested. I was reasonably satisfied with his response and was surprised that their surveys showed people were more adverse to killing Hares compared to Foxes? In any case he promised there would be Coursing Dogs at the CA stand at the CLA Game Fair this year! LOL.

 

Be good to hear all of your thoughts on his response......

 

My letter:

 

"Dear Tim

If I become a member can I Trust that the CA will not just focus on fox hunting but also the other country pursuits involving the use of dogs for hunting such as Coursing and lurcher work?

It seems to me that organizations such as LACS are much more well organized than we are and they promote all angles of their argument. We don't seem to doing that we just paint the picture that we want fox hunting back and nothing else. The public needs to be made aware of all of the sports impacted by the ban not just the one that, lets speak frankly here, causes the most uproar from the public who either sit on the fluffy bunny brigade or just hate the upper class!, ( or the English!)

In my opinion the CA needs to launch a multi-angle campaign and educate the public about all hunting with dogs. Most people I know think hunting anything with dogs is illegal! People just have no idea about he legislation and our enemies (LACS etc.) play on that and just put poor little foxy on the front page and people make their minds up in an instant without knowing the facts.

Just my honest opinion, I'm ready to donate but need assurances first that this wont carry on like this.

Yours Sincerely"

 

Tim's Response:

 

"Agree completely, but can't guarantee success. The recent amendment proposals were generated by the problems of farmers in the uplands and would have been mostly beneficial to the gun packs, yet every story was illustrated with the reddest coat possible. We sent the broadcast media into Brecon, Radnor etc. but the stereotype of the mounted, posh foxhunter is so fixed that it is very, very difficult to shift.

The whole debate has become completely politicised with almost no consideration of the realities of wildlife management. I can promise we will keep trying to show hunting in a very different light - I'm planning a socio-economic study of hunting to challenge perceptions for instance - but as above I can't promise to shift deeply held stereotypes.

On coursing and long dogs we have tried to focus on 'pest control hunting' to give it a rather ugly description because our public opinion research suggests that people are less unhappy with killing foxes than other animals especially hares. I'll certainly look at rabbits and we are always happy to push every sort of country sport.

Hope this helps

Tim"

[J Darcy 5,871]

They're trying their best.

 

And the recent amendment was NOT about lurchers. It was about flushing with more than two dogs.

[fluff 410]

people should remember a dogs a dog not just running dogs lurchers any dog ,the quicker the bill gets amended the better for everybody involved in the hunting coursing pestcontrol

[swg dave 334]

Lets March, and this time we will make our voices heard,

Hopefully the C A can arrange something for all country sports.

And fisherman, you must march with us.

I have all ways said that the media,, they down played the real numbers of

people who marched, I have seen some big crowds over the years

but never nothing on the scale of the last big march, they say 407,000

people was on the last march, it was more like over a million,

and the count was SUPPOSEDLY done on clicker counters, YEAH OK.

[swg dave 334]

May be the fisherman can march under the banner of

 

ANGLERS SUPPORT ALL COUNTRY SPORTS

AND THE RIGHT TO HUNT WITH DOGS

 

Just an idea.

[MickyB 327]

Personally I think its bullshit, you go on CA website type in the search engine lurchers or terriers nothing comes up apart from a few shows, now type in hounds.... The problem is Mr Bonner and crew don't attempt to put running dogs in the lime light, if they did maybe peoples opinion of hunting hares would be similar to that of hunting fox? I got the email and I'm happy to play my part in any way I can but I wont be handing out cash to CA until I see some running dog based campaigns an email doesn't mean anything maybe just what you want to hear in order to drum up funds, call me skeptical but its JMO

Micky