Hounded by Change, Fox Hunters Adapt : Recreation: Suburban sprawl has radically altered hunt clubs. Many once-exclusive groups are becoming democratized to stay alive.

To Stephen Budiansky, fox hunters always seemed like “elitist and preposterous” people, the kind English writer Oscar Wilde labeled “the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.”

Budiansky loves the countryside and enjoys riding horses, but until recently, he said, he “never could have imagined” joining a hunt club.

Today the Frederick County, Md., resident is a full-fledged member of the Loudoun Hunt Club, dressing in all the traditional finery and relishing the thrill of the chase.

It’s not that Budiansky has changed. It’s the hunt clubs that are undergoing a radical transformation in the face of suburban sprawl and the influx of urban professionals into the clubs’ rural bastions.

Fox hunting, one of the few American institutions to remain virtually unchanged for two centuries, will never be the same. Many once-exclusive clubs in the Washington area, including the nation’s premier fox-hunting region stretching from Loudoun County, Va., to the Charlottesville, Va., area, are becoming democratized to stay alive.

“There are clubs that require a certain amount of income, but social caste is not a factor” as much as in previous generations, said Jimmy Young, a senior master of the prestigious Orange County Hunt Club--a former New York hunt that decamped to Fauquier County, Va., decades ago.

“It’s become a much more egalitarian enterprise. It varies from hunt to hunt, just like golf clubs,” Young said. “No hunt can maintain that exclusivity and survive.”

The steady move of city and suburban residents to rural home sites of five to 50 acres is carving up the open land where fox hunters have roamed freely for generations. Some hunt clubs have died. Others have moved because of the new residents, many of whom have only a vague idea of what fox hunting entails.

Several hunt clubs have adapted by inviting former city slickers into their ranks in exchange for the continued right to hunt on their property.

Many among this new breed of fox hunter hold full-time jobs but arrange their schedules to ride to the hounds once or twice a week, said David Moyes, a Leesburg lawyer and honorary whipper-in of the Loudoun Hunt. “A majority of our members are ordinary working stiffs.”

The changes have upset some families who have hunted for generations, but “the grumbling is about the cutting up of property, not about the people” moving in, said Loudoun Hunt Master Harry Wight.

Hunt officials say they have been unfairly criticized as cruel to animals. They note that U.S. fox hunters normally do not kill their prey, unlike their English counterparts.

Budiansky, 34, said he and many other new fox hunters were surprised to find that the sport often is more dangerous to the hunter than to the hunted. Riders are often nursing sprains and broken bones. Many new members consider themselves environmentalists as well as outdoorsmen and say fox hunting is the best way to see and enjoy the countryside.

Many new club members are drawn by the craving for a stronger sense of tradition, reinforced by the formality of hunt dress and etiquette. Yet some newcomers say they enjoy chasing foxes more than chasing higher social standing.

Budiansky, a senior writer at U.S. News and World Report who moved to this area from New England 12 years ago and joined the Loudoun Hunt last year, said he was surprised at the reception he received when he applied for membership: “There was no hint of, ‘We want to see if you’re socially acceptable.’ The nature of the sport has changed, and the appeal has changed.”

A few clubs have begun using portable phones to keep track of the hounds, and the traditionally sacrosanct boundaries of the clubs--rigidly enforced by the Masters of Foxhounds Assn. of America--are being altered as development swallows generations-old hunting grounds.

Clubs such as Bull Run and the Fairfax Hunt have worked out laborious agreements under which they lease territory from other clubs--some as much as an hour’s drive away. Even the most prestigious clubs worry about subdivisions, golf courses, shooting ranges and other new land uses incompatible with hunting.

The foxes may be adapting too, hunters note. As the animal’s population grows and open land shrinks, foxes travel shorter distances when pursued and find shelter in man-made contraptions such as drainage pipes and even basements, hunters say.