Legal hare coursers are no less culpable

WHILE welcoming this week’s convictions in Co Meath for illegal hare coursing, I am somewhat bemused by the comments that have since appeared on websites and online forums from officials of legal coursing clubs, denouncing those who were caught.

The type of hare coursing permitted by law in Ireland is as cruel as the proscribed variety targeted by the wildlife rangers in Meath. In some respects it is actually worse for the hares.

The illegal coursers use dogs to chase and kill hares, and the so-called sport, despicable and one-sided though it may be, is over relatively quickly.

In legal hare coursing, the hares are cruelly snatched from their habitats, crammed into little boxes, transported in vans or car boots to holding compounds and then subjected to weeks of unnatural captivity before being used as live bait at coursing events.

Though not killed outright by muzzled dogs, the hares can be mauled, forcibly struck, pinned to the ground, or tossed into the air by greyhounds.

So I wouldn’t get carried away with elation over the convictions of those illegal hare coursers. Their “law-abiding” counterparts in the 70 state-approved coursing clubs are no less culpable than the enemies of the humble hare.

John Fitzgerald

Lower Coyne Street

Callan

Co Kilkenny