Protest against issuing of new hare coursing license

Monday July 29, 2013 22:41

by Ban Hare Coursing!

Hare Coursing savagery must be opposed

Protest outside Minister Jimmy Deenihan's office (Department of Arts and Heritage) in Kildare Street (Between Dail and Dept of Agriculture)...1pm to 2pm...August 1st. All Welcome!

...Calling on Minister Deenihan NOT to license another season of hare coursing cruelty!

Will minister allow more of this?

The Minister is only days away from making a decision on whether to allow another season of live hare coursing. He has the power to grant a license permitting coursing clubs to commence netting of hares for another five months of terror and cruelty.

This would mean setting up thousands of hares to be terrorised in wired enclosures...to be tossed about, mauled, pinned down and subjected to horrific injuries...all for a gamble and laugh in the coursing heartlands.

And this cruelty, in many instances, would be staged in appalling weather conditions, adding to the hare’s miserable plight...hail storms, heavy rain, gale force winds, and water-logged fields.

Not to mention the injuries to which the greyhounds are prone in this situation. They too, are victims of this cowardly blood sport.

We are appealing to the Minister NOT to grant the license. Apart from our objection to the entire practise of hare coursing, which is cruel start to finish, we have drawn the Minister’s attention to numerous breaches of the license he granted to the coursing clubs last year.

There were numerous instances of unlawful trespass by coursing clubs. Copies of reports detailing these have already forwarded to the Minister by Deputies Clare Daly and Maureen O’ Sullivan and also to National Parks and Wildlife Service.

The license permitting coursing clubs to net hares for the 2012/13 season contained a very clear stipulation that clubs must have the permission of landowners to access their property for the purpose of netting. But this condition was massively flouted by coursing clubs.

The owners of the various lands/properties on which hares were netted for the last season were contacted by an animal advocacy group. Many of the landowners were horrified to learn that hares had been netted on their property. They have confirmed in writing that they did not grant permission to the coursing clubs to enter their lands to net hares.

Minister Deenihan must take license violations into account in deciding whether to allow coursing clubs to resume their assault on the gentle shares of Ireland. We say: The multiple license breaches prove the clubs CANNOT BE TRUSTED.

We call on him to deny coursing clubs the right to inflict a further five months of organized cruelty on the

gentle hare, a mammal that dates to before the Ice Age and remains a precious part of Ireland’s wildlife heritage.