New figures expose the scale of cub hunting — and the scale of an animal charity’s deliberate deceit.

The League Against Cruel Sports has released its annual cub-hunting figures — a grim catalogue of foxes chased, torn apart, and communities disrupted. The cruelty is real. The suffering is real. But the League’s presentation of the facts is not.

On social media, the animal charity proudly announced that “new figures from our investigators” reveal the horrors of the autumn season. These words were chosen with precision. They are meant to conjure images of trained staff in the field, documenting illegality at close quarters. They are meant to persuade supporters that the League is still present where the violence occurs — in the woods, the fields, the places where fox cubs are cornered and killed.

But this is a story constructed from thin air.

The League’s own press release — the one most people will never read — quietly admits that the data came from hunt monitors and hunt saboteurs, the volunteers who risk abuse, assault, and confrontation to record what happens. The League’s contribution consisted of trawling through social media posts and assembling reports gathered by others.

To describe this as “our investigators” is not merely spin. It is deception.
A deception rooted in the expectation that the public will not check.

Words matter. When a powerful organisation suggests that its own teams uncovered wrongdoing, when in reality it played no such role, it seizes credit from those who shoulder the danger. It misleads donors into believing they are funding front-line work that did not occur. It manufactures credibility from the labour — and risk — of others.

This is not a minor infraction.
This is misrepresentation with purpose.

The League Against Cruel Sports knows perfectly well that they were not present at cub hunts this year. It knows that its social media followers will assume otherwise. And it knows that simply reviewing the reports of those who were there does not entitle it to claim their work as its own.

The cruelty of cub hunting persists because it happens out of sight. Those who fight it must be honest, transparent, and grounded in reality. When a animal charities begins to distort its own role in that struggle, it weakens the entire effort. The public deserves the truth, not a carefully staged illusion. The monitors and sabs deserve recognition, not appropriation.

Illegal hunting thrives in the shadows. The fight against it must be conducted in the clear light of honesty.