Despite acknowledging that the digging out of foxes and the use of terriers to attack them is “unacceptable“, Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney has so far refused to outlaw these most abhorrent acts.

IN ITS efforts to re-introduce an extinct species, the Golden Eagle Trust is sadly advocating the killing of existing species. The trust’s website discourages farmers from threatening eagles by illegally poisoning foxes and suggests that they instead shoot them.

IN response to Philip Kiernan’s letter (May 19) about the project that the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) is running to control some mink and other predators, I would like to correct a number of errors.

DESPITE an earlier admission that it would be doomed to failure, the Department of the Environment’s National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) is incredibly proceeding with a €1 million mink massacre.

IT was horrifying to see an actual veterinary surgeon defending cruel coursing (Letters, October 6). Tommy Kearney’s claim that coursers “hold the welfare of the Irish hare very close to their hearts” is just plain wrong.

THE Irish Council Against Blood Sports commends Aer Lingus for recently removing a matador from an online graphic promoting flights to Europe.

VODAFONE’S inclusion of a bullfighting scene in its current TV advert is both insensitive and offensive.

IN his diatribe against what he terms “vicious mink”, Cllr Michael Gleeson calls for an urgent elimination of this “most unwelcome” species (Letters, September 27).

WRITING about so-called waste generation, Bill Bryson once observed that it takes the equivalent of five nuclear power plants to feed all the appliances left running unnecessarily.

THE current investigation by gardaí into a greyhound blooding incident in a Dublin park is a numbing reminder that the practice continues despite being highly illegal.

ONE of the most inhumane animal traps ever devised has recently been flooding into the Irish market.

DESPITE being illegal in Ireland, the blood sport of cockfighting still takes place in some parts of the country.