The joy of chasing creatures is a perversion

I REFER to Mr Jack Power’s attempt to defend the indefensible in your feature “Fair Game?” on 9th December.

The fact that an obviously intelligent, articulate, apparently well-educated person could claim that nearly everything in his life pales into insignificance when compared with the ecstasy of torturing and killing a poor defenceless creature is, frankly, chilling.

Mr Power has placed himself in the same category with the moronic thugs who threw Cobh people’s beloved pet cats to their hunting dogs so they could experience the same “high” when witnessing their suffering, and the evil individuals who poured petrol on the back of a pony and set it alight in Cork City. He trots out the same old specious argument that farm animals are killed and eaten. The slaughter of all food animals is governed by very strict regulations which ensure that these animals are quickly and humanely dispatched.

Whether the perpetrators of such vile cruelty dress up in expensive riding gear to hunt down and rend limb from limb our only native wild dog, or pepper some poor child’s puppy with leadshot (as happened recently in Cobh), they are driven by the same primitive, shameful impulse — and, yes Mr Power, the joy of the chase is, indeed, a perversion!

Eileen Clarke

Roche’s Row

Cobh

Co Cork