The National Trust voted last night to continue to allow hunting on its 600,000 acres in England and Wales.
The decision, made by a sizeable majority of the 75,000 members who voted by post or in person at yesterday's annual meeting in London, ended the first attempt for 51 years to ban blood sports on one of Britain's largest landholdings.
The vote followed an afternoon of heated debate among the 1,000 members at the meeting in Central Hall, Westminster. Members were evenly divided between animal rights supporters and the hunting, shooting and fishing brigade.
A vote to ban the hunting of fox, hare and deer with dogs on the estates would have curtailed the activities of dozens of hunts throughout the country, including the Prince of Wales's favourite, the Quorn in Leicestershire, although some estates already ban hunting for conservation reasons.
Last night the animal rights activists who proposed the ban on hunting vowed to continue campaigning within the trust and predicted victory within three years.
The man who led the campaign, Paul Sheldon, a 40-year-old academic from Dorset and a member of the League Against Cruel Sports, said landowners would have to take account of the majority of people in the country who were opposed to "barbaric" sports.
"Hunting live animals with hounds is archaic, a remainder from a more primitive and cruel age," he said. "It has no place in a modern society which professes to care about its environment."
The pro- and anti-blood sport lobbies had spent several months persuading supporters to join the trust and to influence the decision at yesterday's meeting. Of the 75,000 members who voted, 46,000 wanted hunting to continue and 29,000 were against it. But despite the publicity, the majority of the trust's 1.6m members did not vote.
The hunting lobby, supported by the trust's council, had argued that blood sports should not be banned because they were still legal and were part of an important tradition and way of life in Britain's countryside.
Senior officers of the trust, Britain's largest organisation, had also argued that they would lose the goodwill of tenant farmers who hunt to keep out foxes. More importantly, they feared losing the financial support of landowners who bequeath property worth millions of pounds to the trust on condition that hunting is allowed on the land.
Dame Jennifer Jenkins, the trust's chairwoman, said last night that she was delighted with the result. "A ban on hunting would certainly have been damaging and divisive for the trust," she said. "This is a moral issue that should be settled by parliament."
The Masters of Foxhounds' Association also welcomed the decision. "The low number of members who voted shows quite clearly that fox hunting is not the burning issue or great social evil which our opponents make it out to be," a spokesman said. "The number of votes for the motion is insignificant as a proportion of the trust's total membership."
The Hunt Saboteurs Association said the fact that the motion was brought before the trust at all was a victory.
"The trust can bury its head in the sand but nothing will stop us from foxing the hunt for as long as it takes to see it end," said a spokesman. "Whether or not the National Trust bans blood sports, it will not stop our campaign from getting stronger."
The spokesman said hundreds of saboteurs disrupted hunts throughout the country yesterday, the traditional opening day of the hunting season.
