Hunting, a guide for anti-hunt and animal rights activists - Interview with Lynn Sawyer (vegan), Part 2 of 2

Lynn Sawyer (vegan) is a passionate animal-people rights advocate and the author of “Hunting, a guide for anti-hunt and animal rights activists. Hunting with dog-persons is illegal in England under the Hunting Act 2004, although the Act does have limited exemptions. “Legal hunting with hounds would be following a false scent. So that would be legal hunting. Rats and rabbits are excluded from protection, so it is legal to rip apart a rabbit with dogs. There’s a bird of prey exemption. There’s a gamekeeper exemption, which means it’s okay if you’re a gamekeeper. You can kill a fox by digging them out.” Badger-people are legally protected in the United Kingdom under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992. “Now, the reason the badger cull was brought in, allegedly, was because what the government is saying is that badgers spread bovine tuberculosis. So, it intersects quite well with the vegan message, because we don’t need to eat meat, we don’t need to eat dairy, and badgers are being killed for the meat and dairy industry.”

While hunting with dog-people is technically illegal in the United Kingdom, unfortunately there are numerous exemptions. Lynn emphasizes, however, that hunters are finding it increasingly difficult to justify killing animal-people due to the growing opposition to hunting. “More hunts are being taken to court now, but it is an ongoing battle.” “But I also wrote it as I don’t recognize fox hunting as a single issue; I think it’s all part of a bigger struggle, and that’s our attitude towards other animals, and how we regard them as tools. Us as a species, we regard others as a tool to use and abuse, and it’s just against that whole mindset.” “My biggest bit of advice would be: If you are involved in any form of exploitation and abuse, whether it’s betting at the races, or going fishing, or eating meat, is to stop those things and to become vegan.”