Gormley rides to defence of the stag

ENVIRONMENT Minister John Gormley has delivered a decisive blow to carted stag hunting.

Apart from compelling hunters to avoid chasing stags in future, allowing them instead merely to create a scent for the dogs to follow, the minister’s new licensing arrangement has imposed many other restrictions that will make stag hunting with hounds in Ireland a thing of the past.

Animal protection groups have lobbied for decades against this blood sport.

For years, mounted deer hunters have hounded and terrorised the majestic stags of Ireland.

There were few sights more distressing than that of a once proud stag on the point of exhaustion, its battered frame encircled by howling dogs. Stags that refused to budge when dropped from the crates were goaded and beaten with sticks, as residents of a village in Co Meath testified in a submission to the Department of the Environment.

Hunters got away with mayhem and savagery for so long thanks to the backing of key politicians and ‘pillars of society’. Now, thanks to the Green party’s participation in government, the stags have won an historic reprieve.

This represents an important political and ecological milestone. In addition to safeguarding our deer population from cruelty, it has boosted the morale of all animal protection campaigners.

John Fitzgerald

Lr Coyne Street

Callan

Co Kilkenny