Save the Hares of Island Eddy!

international | environment | press release Friday September 23, 2011 12:34 by Cherishing our Wildlife Heritage

Galway Bay is feted in song and story as one of Ireland's key tourist attractions. How sad then that Island Eddy, located at the eastern inner end of the bay, is a prime target for hare coursing clubs. The Campaign for the Abolition of Cruel Sports (CACS) has just issued this statement:

Island Eddy, a peaceful haven now targeted by hare catchers

Galway Bay island targeted by hare coursing club!

We are appalled and disappointed to learn that “Island Eddy”, a small island located at the eastern end of Galway Bay, may again have its idyllic haven of tranquillity shattered by those involved in the barbaric practise of live hare coursing.

A coursing club has netted hares on the island and may do so again this year. We believe this activity could damage the attraction of Galway Bay, renowned as it is in song and story and feted worldwide as one of Ireland’s key tourist destinations.

The island has been uninhabited since the 1980s, but is host to a hare population that shares the 165 acre landmass with a few otters, bats, and occasionally sheep or horses that graze the fields.

In recent years, a coursing club has set its eyes on the hares of Island Eddy. Not content to allow these gentle creatures live out their short, humble, inoffensive lives in peace, the coursers have gone to the island in their boats and captured the hares with nets. The animals were then used at coursing events, where they were chased and terrorised for “sport

Under the license conditions that apply to the capture of hares for coursing, the animals that survive the event are supposed to be released afterwards in the same location from which they were netted.

In November 2009, twelve hares taken from the island were used at a coursing event organised by the Galway and Oranmore Coursing Club at Loughrea. According to an FOI report (reproduced below)elicited from the National Parks and Wildlife Service, none of these hares were returned to the island, the reason given by the coursing club for this being: “strong winds and dangerous seas”.

The coursing club promised the NPWS it would not net any hares on Island Eddy in 2010, but no such undertaking, to the best of our knowledge, has been given in relation to the upcoming hare coursing season, due to commence in less than a fortnight.

We challenge hare coursing clubs to avoid contaminating the scenic and cultural resource that is Galway Bay by involving Island Eddy in their cruel blood sport. Linking such a discredited activity, which has been banned in Australia, Britain, and most recently Northern Ireland, to this Jewel in the Crown of our tourist industry will do little to enhance our image as a nation. It could even hurt our reputation abroad.

We are calling on coursing clubs NOT to net hares from the island this year. Not just out of concern for animal welfare, which is the main objection to hare coursing itself, but also on conservation grounds because the size of the hare population on the island is unkown

CACS and other campaign groups have written to TDs and councillors in County Galway asking them to press for an end to all hare netting for coursing on the island.

Folowing is an exact copy of the FOI report from the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) showing that it was Galway & Oranmore Coursing club that seized the hares from Island Eddy in Galway Bay on a previous occasion in 2009.

Galway & Oranmore c.c. at Loughrea, Nov 4, 2009:
5 hares struck, 1 died. The ranger noted that 12 hares had been captured
on Island Eddy, but could not be released there because of strong winds
and dangerous seas. He noted “after consultation between Conservation
Ranger, DCO and coursing club it was decided to release a few more hares
in each of the other locations. The Coursing Club have said that they
will not trap there in 2010 to allow numbers to recover or else they
will investigate the possibility of trapping hares in another location
in the meantime and translocating them to Island Eddy without being coursed.

...End of statement...

From the safety and quiet of the island...to this?