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RICHMOND — Hunters defended a Virginia law Thursday allowing them unlimited access to pursue their hounds when the dogs run astray on private property.
A hearing on changes to the so-called “right-to-retrieve” law attracted nearly 150 people, many in hunter orange caps and camouflage. Several speakers forcefully spoke against any effort to soften the law, which has run afoul of landowners who object to uninvited hunters traipsing on their land.
Speakers accused the state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries of stacking the deck against hunting interests, hewing an animal rights agenda and conspiring to curtail or limit dog hunting, as several other Southern states have done in recent years.
“I am afraid we are witnessing the beginning of the end of hound hunting in Virginia,” said Warren Radford of the Virginia Bear Hunters Association.
The department’s board denied any hidden agenda and said hunters should recognize and attempt to correct the abuses of a few to preserve the rights of all hunters.
“To say I’d be a part of a conspiracy, it would be a lie,” board member Richard E. Railey Jr. said. “We’ll never accomplish anything if we don’t agree there is a problem.”
The board accepted a report on hunting with hounds but did not act on any of the proposals. The most contentious, the retrieval law, would require action by the General Assembly on what many consider to be the most absolute in the country.
The changes would require hunters to make a “reasonable attempt” to contact a landowner before retrieving their dogs; land that was not clearly posted as private property, however, would be presumed to be open.
A coalition of hound hunters — mounted fox hunters to sportsmen who tree bears with radio-collar dogs — has mounted a fierce campaign to blunt the proposals, which include ideas such as the hiring of additional enforcement officers and dog tagging.
They contend their heritage of dog hunting, which dates to Virginia’s founding fathers, is threatened.
“We organized to resist your efforts to destroy hunting with hounds in Virginia,” said Kirby Burch of the Virginia Hunting Dog Alliance, which claims 35,000 members.
Hunters who use dogs to track deer, bears, raccoons and other wildlife argue their dogs need to be retrieved for their own safety. A trained dog can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars.
But even fellow hunters have demanded action to amend the right-to-retrieve. Still hunters, for instance, contend their own stealth-based hunts are disturbed by the baying of hounds.
“If you want to know why people are upset, I’m here to tell you why,” said Bobby Smith, a hunter who said he owns 438 acres in Rockridge County. “I’m not against hunting with hounds. I’m against (hunters) going on my property.”
State wildlife officials, who described the issue as the most divisive in their memory, have said they want to deal head-on with complaints about the sport before they have to follow Texas, Alabama, Georgia and other states that have restricted hound hunting.
While animal rights activists have had a say in those battles, the loss of habitat has been a primary source of conflict between hunters and landowners.
The Humane Society of the United States and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals spoke against the right-to-retrieve law, and the Humane Society placed ads in several newspapers to highlight what it said were abuses of hunting dogs.
“Is this the face of a time-honored tradition?” the ad asks under a photo of an emaciated hound.