This month, after 140 years of selling furs, Harrods closed its salon. As animal rights activists everywhere celebrated, I went hunting for the creature which produces the coats with the highest profile: mink. I joined one of the first hunts of what may well be one of the last seasons. For after a long-running drama, featuring saboteurs and undercover agents, the hunters' traditional stance that they are engaged in pest control and conservation is under serious attack.
Often mistaken for otters, mink in fact are much smaller - half the length and a fifth of the weight. Britain's first mink colony was founded in the 1950s, and by 1970, when the fur boom collapsed, there were some 700 registered ranches farming the American mink, Mustela vison, which had been imported since 1929. Some mink escaped from increasingly badly maintained cages, while some owners simply released theirs, not expecting any to survive. "In an act of equally gross stupidity, animal liberationists let out more," says John Bryant from the League Against Cruel Sports. In 1975 Mr Bryant was acquitted of the charge of receiving two beagles taken from an ICI laboratory.
Between 1965 and 1970, the Ministry of Agriculture regarded mink as a pest because they attacked farmyard poultry, and attempted in vain to eradicate them by trapping. In 1978, mink hunting was officially recognized as a field sport.
Bob Tucker, one of the joint masters of the Ytene Hunt in Dorset, has been first otter and then mink hunting for 35 years. An enormous man in green hunting uniform and plus-fours, he met me at a pub. When he was satisfied that I had not brought along saboteurs, I was allowed to join the meet, although the white-haired wife of a farmer felt Mr Tucker had not taken enough care: "You're one of them," she said. "I don't like speaking to people like you."
Feelings against saboteurs run understandably high, since their activities can involve violence against hunters. "They're supposed to be animal lovers," says Rose Witcome, joint master and keeper of hounds for 41 years, "but they killed a bitch by beating her with chains. I'd like to shoot them." The League Against Cruel Sports also condemns such activists: "Their tactics are disastrous as no government can be seen to give in to violence. It's a form of terrorism, and it's particularly evil to terrorize in the name of a humane cause," Mr Bryant says. The league "accepts that farmers have to resort to trapping mink", but its attitude to the hunters has been less benign. They first clashed in the years before 1977, before the otter became a protected species. Mr Bryant recalls jumping in a river to save an otter.
The drama intensified in 1981 when the league successfully introduced a "mole" into the hunters' ranks. He was Michael Huskisson, then the league's press officer. Huskisson, who had been acquitted on the charge of stealing three beagles from an ICI laboratory in 1975, had been jailed two years later for his part in the desecration of the grave of the huntsman John Peel. Huskisson stayed under cover for two years and then emerged with a film which, among other things, alleged to disprove the mink hunters' claims of an "instant kill". The huntsmen have always denied the validity of the film. Huskisson was jailed again, in 1986, for his involvement in a raid on research laboratories.
The Ytene huntsmen and "whippers" whom I accompanied took care to ensure that the hounds did not go after deer, and that they did not go into an area where otters were thought to be. In fact, nothing at all happened. No mink were found. Some 20 foxhounds, otterhounds and crossbreeds snuffled along the river bank. They only ever barked to "speak" to a rabbit; more cows gave tongue than did any of the dogs. They were watched by a bunch of elderly local residents walking their dogs. "On a hot day," Susie Morice Jones, aged 29, says, "it's absolutely gorgeous. It's not cruel, because the mink do escape."
This, of course, is the argument for "good sport" but nowadays mink hunting is not supposed to be good sport, but good pest control. When the Master himself admits that the young hounds often "go the wrong way for three-quarters of a mile", this appears a dubious aim.
Arlin Rickard, the south-west regional spokesman for the British Field Sports Society and a former Master, makes no such admissions. He says hunting is the most effective means of control, as "mink are wise to traps".
John Birks of the Nature Conservancy Council disagrees. Dr Birks, who wrote his PhD on mink and has conducted post-doctoral research ever since, says: "It's absolute nonsense. You catch far more mink by targeting sites at risk and using 'live cage' traps. While the hunt is on, other mink could be killing more chickens."
The hunters say preservation of wild life is their main concern: "We're the conservationists," one said; "mink ruin the ecological balance," another added. According to Dr Birks, both are mistaken. He claims that national surveys run by the British Ornithological Trust and Wildfowl Trust indicate there has been no serious decline in wildfowl in the past 30 years although on offshore islands such as the Hebrides mink do cause considerable damage to ground-nesting birds, such as terns, which are unaccustomed to predators. "Mink are a useful scapegoat, particularly because it is much more satisfying to blame an alien animal," Dr Birks says.
Mr Rickard claims mink make it difficult for otters to recolonize, and have "decimated water-vole and moorhen populations in many areas". In fact, like its cousin, the European mink, the animal has been monitored living side by side with otters and water-voles, according to Dr Birks. Not mink, but the increased number of crows, he says are to blame for eating the eggs of coots and moorhens.
"The main danger is that so long as they blame mink, as they previously blamed the otters, the real causes will remain undetected," Dr Birks says.
Another area of contention is the extent to which wildlife is disturbed. "All reputable bodies are against hunting because of the disruption," Mr Bryant says, while Mr Rickard insists that the frequent checking of traps causes more disturbance. "It is in the interests of hunters to keep public sympathy," Dr Birks says. "To do so, some propagate misinformation and blatantly ignore research."
Whoever is right, hunters are undoubtedly an endangered species: in 1987, 19 hunts were registered in Bailey's Hunting Directory; today there are 12. It's the mink who are here to stay.
