Gun gangs hunt in Mersey parks

Feb 26 2008 by Luke Traynor, Liverpool Daily Post

ILLEGAL hunting in Merseyside’s parks is terrorising dog walkers and devastating wild animal populations.

ILLEGAL hunting in Merseyside’s parks is terrorising dog walkers and devastating wild animal populations.

Gun-toting gangs are setting their dogs on defenceless wild animals and watching as they are ripped to shreds.

And anyone who challenges their sickening hobby is threatened with violence.

One Merseyside councillor was knocked unconscious in front of his terrified 11-year-old son after confronting a gang.

A laughing mob pointed a rifle at a 48-year-old mother before threatening to kill her pet cats.

And another woman watched in horror as two hunting dogs ripped off part of her mongrel’s ear as they walked in the park.

Foxes and other wild animals used to be a common sight in Huyton’s 220-acre Stadt Moers Park. But their numbers have dropped significantly over the past 12 months.

Last week, police swooped on the Knowsley common as part of a two-night crackdown on illegal hunters. Undercover officers hid in the undergrowth to catch those involved.

It follows growing concerns in the community about the wanton killing sprees taking place in the park.

Shocked locals in the Huyton area have reported seeing the bodies of mutilated cats in the park, and youths shaking tree branches to hunt down squirrels as a pack of dogs bayed on the ground.

Wildlife police said the pastime appealed to all age groups, with men taking their teenage sons along on hunts to “blood’” them.

Some take away their dead prey as trophies of their night’s work.

Merseyside police’s wildlife crime officer Steve Harris said Bold, in St Helens, Crosby, Altcar and the Wirral were also hunting hotspots.

A police crackdown seems to have driven illegal hunters out of Croxteth Park

Mr Harris said: “We hear of a lot of incidents involving men hunting animals with dogs. It’s a gruesome business. There’s lots of intelligence that suggests Merseyside men travel the length and breadth of the country to do it.”