We have a confused attitude to animal welfare

We have a strange and confused attitude to animal welfare in this country.

A man has recently been sentenced to four months detention for throwing a homeless man’s pet rabbit into the Liffey. I have no problem with that. But it comes in the middle of the coursing season, during which thousands of hares are captured in the wild and then forced to run from pairs of hyped-up greyhounds for “sport”.

The man in the pet rabbit case pleaded guilty to the charge of “animal cruelty and torture”. Surely that description applies equally to what happens in hare coursing?