How the RSPCA Is Using a University to Front Its Campaign Against Hunting

Since late September, hunts across England and Wales have been receiving emails from the University of Bristol. The first, sent on 23 September to honorary secretaries, announced that “The University of Bristol is conducting” a survey of trail hunts. A reminder followed on 7 October. Both were courteous, professional and sent from a bristol.ac.uk address. Both asked hunts to spend fifteen minutes describing their hounds, their kennels, whether rehoming was a consideration, and what they expected to happen to their packs under the government’s proposed trail hunting ban. The survey closed on 11 October.

Neither email said who was paying for it.

It was the RSPCA. The charity funded the study, it will receive the findings, and, according to the consent form hunts had to accept before answering a single question, it will keep the data alongside the university.

The RSPCA’s name was there for those who looked, on page two of the information sheet and in the consent form. But both emails led with the university, and the charity campaigning for the very ban the survey asks about was left for the small print. For hunts weighing whether to take part, there was no more relevant fact.

A campaign in academic clothing

The RSPCA is not a neutral observer of hunting. It argues that "trail hunting must end", calling it an inhumane bloodsport and a "smokescreen" for illegal fox hunting. A charity that wants hunts gone has now been asking them to describe their hounds, their kennels and their fears for the future. It just wasn't asking in its own name.

The difference matters. Had the request come from the RSPCA, hunts would have treated it with the suspicion it deserves. From a respected veterinary school, it arrived with an air of independence that the charity could never claim for itself. The reminder is written in the language of care, speaking of "rehoming organisations who are poised to support hunts". Nowhere did it mention that the body funding the study is campaigning for the ban that would leave those hounds needing new homes.

The real casualty is the university

Academic research earns trust because it is understood to follow the evidence, not the funder. Every time a campaigning body pays for research on the very policy it is lobbying for, and takes possession of the data, that trust wears thinner.

The University of Bristol should be asking itself whether it is comfortable lending its name to this arrangement. The survey asks hunts what future they "anticipate" for their hounds under a ban. Answers to that kind of question can be presented whichever way suits a campaign. Whatever the intentions of the individual researchers, the effect is that a university letterhead is fronting the data-gathering of a lobby group.

Two documents, two different promises

The information sheet attached to both emails told hunts that survey findings would be shared with the RSPCA, and that data would not be disclosed to any third party “except that agreed”.

What hunts were then asked to agree to went much further. The consent form states that the University of Bristol and the RSPCA will keep the anonymised data, that it may be made available to other researchers, and that it may be used in future research projects. A hunt reading the information sheet would reasonably have believed the RSPCA was getting a summary. By ticking the consent form, they agreed to the charity keeping the data itself, and to it travelling further still.

Hunts gave everything, and get nothing back

The terms on offer were strikingly one-sided.

• Hunts will not be sent the results. The researchers say anonymity makes that impossible.
• Once a response was submitted, it could not be withdrawn. One hunt that completed the survey says it did not realise it had reached the final question until its response had already gone, leaving it no chance to review its answers.
• The data stays with the RSPCA. The stated purposes are broad, and nothing limits how the charity may quote or publish the findings, or which “other researchers” may receive the data.

Hunts were asked to hand over detailed knowledge of their animals, the knowledge of people who care for these hounds every day. They will not be shown what is made of it, cannot correct it, and will have no say in how it is presented. The RSPCA, meanwhile, now holds a dataset carrying the stamp of a university.