London, UK—A ban on hunting foxes with dogs went into effect in Britain over the weekend, but organized hunting parties continued hunting—with guns.

Both pro- and anti-hunting groups claimed success Sunday, with hunters claiming their pastime would continue and animal rights activists saying foxes would now be killed in a more humane manner.

Under the new law, which has been in the works since Prime Minister Tony Blair first came to power in 1997, hunters are forbidden to allow their dogs to maul foxes. However, using the dogs to flush foxes out into the open, where they can then be shot dead by marksmen, is still legal.

The ban officially came into force at midnight on Thursday.

The Countryside Alliance, Britain’s main pro-hunting group, said that 91 foxes had been killed by Saturday afternoon, and they expected the weekend’s final tally to rise to over 100.

“We think the number is about average for this time of year,” said spokesman Tim Bonner. “Most were shot, but there were a few instances where the hounds pursued and accidentally killed foxes.”

The Alliance believes that these accidental killings are within the law, and no fox hunting-related arrests were reported over the weekend.

“We will exploit every loophole in this bad law,” Bonner said. “The message is that this is a very nasty piece of legislation ... it has nothing to do with animal welfare.”

Gerald Sumner, a huntsman who takes care of 100 dogs attached to the Puckeridge Hunt, said his group shot dead a fox after hounds chased it into the open.

“It was business as usual in so much that a fox was killed,” he said by phone from the hunt’s home base in Hertfordshire, north of London.

Sumner called the shooting “was very unsporting, but that’s what the government has imposed upon us.”

“The saddest thing about this law is what will be lost is will be the pageantry and tradition,” he said.

Animal rights groups, on the other hand, called the inception of the law a success, and hundreds of activists came out over the weekend to observe and protest against the hunts.

“We have been very pleased with the outcome,” said Mike Hobday, head of public affairs at the League Against Cruel Sports. “Broadly speaking, hunts remained within the law.”

“It seems to us that a small number of hunts did result in people going out and breaking the law,” he said. “Maybe this is inevitable when people go out to hunt with dogs that have only been used to hunting and killing foxes for the whole of their lives.”

Hobday said LACS received five credible reports of potential violations of the law that it will forward to the police. He denied that the continuing killing of foxes represented a setback for the anti-hunting cause.

“It’s not a question of how many are killed but how they are killed,” he said. They weren’t chased for hours across the countryside until they are exhausted, then ripped apart by dogs. Foxes will now be killed humanely and quickly by marksmen.”