Ricky Gervais, Dame Judi Dench, Sir Mark Rylance, Peter Egan, Megan McCubbin and others have signed an open letter to the Labour government to honour its pre-election manifesto promise to ban trail hunting.
Organisers Protect the Wild explain in the letter that trail hunting has become a loophole with which animals are still hunted with dogs, despite the Hunting Act 2004 and repeated attempts to prosecute offenders ever since.
In February, DEFRA secretary (then shadow) Steve Reed told The Times: "[Foxes] are still getting killed as a result of those loopholes and we will close those loopholes.”
As the hunting season begins again this month, Labour's silence on its promised improvements to animal welfare laws means that wildlife will be killed needlessly.