VAWM - Veterinary Association for Wildlife Management

11/03/2026

https://wearehunting.com/hunting-the-facts/ Hunting The Facts - A film about trail hunting people

We Are Hunting is a short film which explains the importance of trail hunting in the rural community, and how banning it would be bad for many reasons

02/01/2026

🔬 New science confirms hunting’s role in conservation
A new peer-reviewed study published in Nature Sustainability (2025) analysed global use and trade data for terrestrial mammal species and found a clear pattern:
species subject to regulated sport hunting are more likely to have stable or increasing populations and less likely to be listed as threatened than species that are not sport hunted.
Importantly, the study also found that species hunted for food were not more likely to have declining populations or higher threat status compared to non-hunted species. This challenges common assumptions and highlights the importance of how wildlife is managed, not just whether it is used.
📌 What this means
The authors conclude that sport hunting, when regulated and science-based, can be associated with a more favourable conservation status of mammal species and can form part of sustainable wildlife management frameworks.
For Europe, these findings strongly resonate with existing hunting models built on:
• strict legal frameworks
• population monitoring and reporting
• adaptive management
• long-term stewardship by hunters
🟢 Key message
This research reinforces a growing body of scientific evidence showing that well-regulated hunting is compatible with, and can support, conservation objectives when embedded in robust governance and ecological knowledge.
📄 Study:
Sport hunting associated with favourable conservation status of mammals
Jacob E. Hill, Kenneth F. Kellner & Jerrold L. Belant
Nature Sustainability (2025)
Science matters. Evidence matters. Sustainable use matters.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-025-01714-6

02/01/2026

30/12/2025

Many are eloquently expressing what the changes to the Animal Welfare strategy will mean to them and the effect it will have.

These are the words of someone who cares deeply about hounds and way of life.

“It begins when most of the world is asleep.
With frost on the ground, breath in the air and the low, familiar sound of hounds greeting the day.

Early mornings that blur into late nights.
Hands that know every face, every habit, every heartbeat.
A deep admiration for animals bred to work and a responsibility to their welfare that never switches off - not on Sundays, not on Christmas, not when it’s cold, wet, or hard.

These hounds are not symbols of class.
They are living beings we know individually.
We watch them age, we worry over them, we celebrate their strength and mourn their passing.
Their welfare is not part of 'sport' it's our daily duty.

This life brings rural communities together in ways that are invisible from the outside.
Farmers, landowners, kennel staff, neighbours - people who understand that showing up matters.
That looking after one anothers welfare is as important as looking after the land itself.

Trail hunting is part of this life. Lawful, regulated, and rooted in daily work, not the cruelty it is so often reduced to in a headline.

But there is a darker side.

The loneliness, the weight of abuse from people who have never stood where we stand.
Never felt the silence of responsibility.
Never loved an animal, nature or the land that depends on you entirely, yet feel entitled to judge from a click bate headline.

This way of life was not chosen, it was learned.
Passed down from generation to generation, through watching, through doing, through respect for animals, land, and hard work.

It carries history and tradition in its hands.

I don’t expect everyone to understand.

But recognise, that behind today’s headlines are real families, real hounds, and lives built quietly and carefully, long before they became something to argue over.”

Thank you Jodie C