A ‘Near Chris’: Packham’s Chance Encounter Beggars Belief
- Feb 17
- 3 min read
Updated: Feb 18
Chris Packham just so happens to stumble across the perfect sob story while out for a stroll in the Dorset countryside.
During the now-infamous "Operation Smokescreen" livestream on 7 February, BBC Springwatch presenter Chris Packham spent five hours following the Blackmore & Sparkford Vale Hunt around Bishop's Caundle with a camera crew and North Dorset Hunt Saboteurs in tow. The veteran anti-hunt campaigner posted a reel to his Facebook page featuring a couple he claimed to have casually bumped into. This couple, we are told, allegedly found a dead fox in their garden following the BSV's Boxing Day meet.
There's just one problem with this tale of coincidence. The Boxing Day meet was at Babcary, in Somerset. The meet Packham attended on 7 February, where he ran into the couple, was at Bishop's Caundle, in Dorset.
They are more than 18 miles apart.
So, we're expected to believe that this couple, who live near Bishop's Caundle, found a dead fox in their garden as a result of the Boxing Day meet - which took place at Babcary, over 18 miles away?
And conveniently, this couple just happened to bump into Packham, during a pre-planned surveillance operation with a full camera crew and saboteur escorts, ready to share their story on camera. BTM isn't convinced.
This has all the hallmarks of a staged encounter - a piece of choreographed theatre designed to give Packham's anti-hunting crusade the emotional ammunition it craves. The "random" local couple providing tearful testimony about dead foxes is straight out of the activist playbook. The couple said the fox “looked as though it has been frightened to death” – a highly dramatic performance for a dead animal.
Beyond the 18-Mile Coincidence
As Baroness Mallalieu, a Labour peer and President of the Countryside Alliance, wrote in The Telegraph this month, Packham's position at the BBC has become untenable. During the livestream, he branded those out trail hunting "entitled lunatics" and "psychopaths." He called a huntsman a "tit." He compared lawful trail hunting to "ancient medieval savagery." And he used his platform to urge viewers to donate to saboteur groups, organisations whose members have their own, well-documented track record of violence and criminal behaviour.
Mallalieu didn't hold back, noting that Packham "seems to take delight in hounding people who enjoy trail hunts, which remain legal despite activists' efforts." She observed what many in the countryside have long suspected: "there is a definite impression that his motivation is as much about hating people than it is about caring for animals."
The Baroness also made a pointed observation about the company Packham keeps. When he visited a Leicestershire hunt last winter, she noted, he was accompanied by animal rights terrorist, Mel Broughton, (as first unveiled by BTM) who has twice been jailed for bombing offences.
So, the 18-mile coincidence isn’t just a question of logistics, it’s emblematic of the wider problem: an activist masquerading as a journalist, generating outrage with pre-packaged encounters while the BBC turns a blind eye. Random chance or carefully staged theatre? At this point, we think the latter.
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