Chris Packham has been accused of harassing huntsmen as he joined forces with saboteurs to follow a hunt through the Dorset countryside for five hours.

The BBC presenter and environmental campaigner compared the Blackmore and Sparkford Vale Hunt to “ancient medieval savagery”, and called those taking part “entitled lunatics” and “psychopaths”.

Packham, 64, and his stepdaughter, Megan McCubbin, a fellow BBC presenter, joined the North Dorset Hunt Saboteurs and followed the hunt with drones and thermal cameras on Saturday.

In the five-hour livestream broadcast on social media, the Springwatch presenter said: “It’s like I’ve got a Tardis and gone back in time to an ancient medieval savagery.

“Where a bunch of entitled lunatics, possibly sociopaths or psychopaths are riding around the countryside taking vicarious pleasure out of chasing wildlife and then watching it getting torn to pieces by dogs.”

He added: “Oh no, actually it’s the 21st century and I’m in Dorset on a Saturday morning watching this carnage.”

Packham also claimed the hunt was a “particularly notorious outfit” with a “reputation for being quite violent”.

During one video clip, a man who appeared to be part of the hunt was listening to Packham talking to the camera and could be heard objecting to one allegation, saying: “You’ve got no evidence.”

Speaking prior to the hunt commencing, the man told Packham: “You won’t be able to keep up, come on, you won’t get anywhere near us.”

Packham said there was “no pretence at all that they are trail hunting”.

Olly Hughes, the managing director of the British Hound Sports Association, accused Packham of treating “harassment of the hunting community as a campaigning tool”.

“Trail hunting is lawful, yet he repeatedly portrays it as criminal without evidence,” he told The Telegraph.

“That is intimidation, not debate. For someone so closely associated with the BBC, this behaviour raises serious questions about impartiality – particularly when other presenters have faced consequences for far less overt campaigning – and whether the director-general should now be reviewing Mr Packham’s contract.”

Packham started the broadcast by praising the work of saboteurs, claiming they were “regularly intimidated” by huntsmen and suffered “threats, verbal abuse [and] all sorts of violence”.

He urged those watching to donate “any money you can raise” to their cause.

After seeing a young woman pass by on horseback, Packham said: “We need to put an end to this vile behaviour.

“The most tragic thing that we are likely to see today is that young woman on a horse. What on earth goes on through these adult minds. It is time it is finally put to bed.”

Standing in a field while a man on horseback passed by with a pack of dogs, Packham added: “Honestly, we built the Pyramids, we sort of invented writing and literature.

“Fast forward we put man on the Moon, we have devices in our pocket that we can speak to people all over the world – the powers that we have as an organism in terms of our inventiveness, our innovativeness, our creativity, our imagination, are unparalleled.

“And yet, we have this rampaging through the countryside in the midst of a biodiversity crisis, terrifying wildlife, shouting and whooping with a pack of dogs intent on pulling a fox to pieces so people can think that’s a great way of spending their Saturday and have fun. There is something seriously wrong with some members of our species.”

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In December 2022, one member of the hunt saboteur group was fined nearly £1,000 for assaulting an 82-year-old landowner, while he was out with the Blackmore and Sparkford Vale Hunt.

Footage from the incident showed a woman hitting the elderly man on the head with a camera, knocking him over and leaving him bleeding from the wound.

In Packham’s latest recording of the hunt’s outing, the BBC presenter described a huntsman as a “tit”.

When a man took issue with Packham’s presence, he remarked that he should be looking “at a tit somewhere, a blue tit” – to which the presenter said “I am”.

On Saturday, Packham called on Emma Reynolds, the Environment Secretary, to start the planned consultation into the next steps on banning the sport. He also urged viewers to write to their local MP and say “enough’s enough”.

Towards the end of the broadcast, he said of the huntsmen: “It’s time to hold them accountable for the crimes they’re committing against wildlife, against people and against simple decency in the UK.”

Packham has long campaigned for the complete ban on hunting.

In 2004, fox hunting was banned by the Labour government and replaced by trail hunting.

However, the Government claims the activity – which involves laying a trail of scent for hounds and horsemen to chase – is a “smokescreen” to obscure foxes being hunted.

Last year, ministers announced plans to ban trail hunting in what has been condemned as part of its “war on the countryside”.

But opposition to the proposed ban of trail hunting is mounting. On Boxing Day, hunt crowds surged in the face of Sir Keir Starmer’s plans to ban the tradition.

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Packham previously provoked controversy by teaming up with Mel Broughton, a notorious animal rights activist, as they monitored the Cottesmore Hunt in Leicestershire in December 2024.

His affiliation with Broughton, who previously served a lengthy prison sentence for his part in a bombing campaign on animal testing laboratories, prompted similar questions about the BBC’s impartiality.

A BBC spokesman said: “Chris Packham is not a member of staff. He is a freelance presenter we hire a few times a year for his expertise. His private activities and views are his own, not the BBC’s.”

The Telegraph has approached Packham for comment.

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