Bloody business

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.

While the blooding of greyhounds is illegal, the blooding of foxhounds has not been outlawed. Before the start of every foxhunting season, packs of inexperienced hounds are brought to fox earths and goaded into attacking and ripping apart defenceless cubs. Hunt members euphemistically refer to this as 'autumn hunting'.

The rest of us regard it as barbarity

Our legislators urgently need to criminalise all who perpetrate this cruelty.

Philip Kiernan

Irish Council Against Blood Sports

PO Box 88

Mullingar

Co Westmeath