Wildlife needs urgent protection

A REPORT issued recently by Environment Minister John Gormley revealed shocking news about the state of our wildlife and their habitats, with some species being described as being on the brink of extinction, while the status of others is “poor”, including Ireland’s hares and otters.

The Irish hare is designated a highly protected species under the 1976 Wildlife Act. Yet it is persecuted, legally, by hare-hunters, including harrier and beagle packs, while hare-coursers are permitted to snatch, under licence from the environment minister, up to 7,000 hares from the wild annually for use as live lures before greyhounds at coursing meetings.

Meanwhile, illegal hare hunters with lurchers and greyhounds routinely trespass on farmlands, hunting hares with impunity, while an understaffed and under-resourced ranger service endeavour to enforce the Wildlife Act.

In the case of the otter, it took a directive from Europe to stop its persecution by hunters with hounds up and down Munster river banks. But the danger still remains from the hunters who, since the ban, have switched to mink-hunting along those same riverbanks, thereby creating huge disturbance for otters and, we suspect, continuing to hunt otters under the guise of hunting mink

For many years, the Irish Council Against Blood Sports has been calling on successive environment ministers to stop issuing hare-netting licences and for harrying and beagling to be outlawed, all to no avail, while our neighbours in the North have adopted the precautionary principle and have suspended all hare-hunting and coursing.

Not to be outdone, the North’s coursers cross the border every year to be hosted by clubs from the Republic.

As for the badger, another of our important and again so-called ‘protected’ species, it continues to be cruelly snared and shot in its thousands by the Agriculture Department, as part of the long running TB debacle, while the environment minister, who is responsible for its conservation, is told to butt out.

Will we have to wait for that slap on the wrist from Europe to protect our wildlife?

Hopefully, Mr Gormley will take the initiative now and move to give our precious wildlife the protection it so desperately needs.

Aideen Yourell

Irish Council Against

Bloodsports

PO Box 88

Mullingar

Co Westmeath