It's time to end the scandal of live hare coursing

[Sentinel55]

I believe that the so-called "sport" of live hare coursing in Ireland should end. I can see no justification for taking hares out of their natural habitat, confining these wild animals for weeks, and then using them as bait for greyhounds so the human spectators can stand around and watch them being terrororized.

I know all about the muzzling of dogs brought in back in 1993 in response to Tony Gregory's efforts to have coursing banned via a Private Members Bill, but this has not achieved its stated objective: though hares are not pulled asunder between the competing dogs as prior to 1993, the dogs still maul them, pin them down, and toss them into the air like playthings.

There is also the condition know as Capture Myopathy, a stress-related ailment that affects some wildlife species, including the hare. It arises from any deeply stressful experience, of which hare coursing is certainly an example. The animal can die within hours of the experience, or may linger for a few days. Even hares transported from one wildlife perserve to another for conservation purposes have succumbed to this condition owing to the stress caused by capture and transporation, so the effects of the coursing ordeal can be imagined.

Hare coursing is banned in the UK, Northern Ireland finally banned it eariler this year. The last Australian state to permit it (South Australia) banned it in 1985.

It was replaced in Australia by drag coursing, in which a mechanical lure is used. This re-creates almost all the elements of a live coursing event, except the cruelty.

Tony Gregory's Bill was defeated by a whopping 104 votes to 16, which shows how powerful the pro-coursing lobby has been.

But maybe a similar move right now might elicit more support right now. I look forward to the day when this gentle creature is protected from one of the worst examples of man's inhumanity to animals.

Here's a brief video showing what goes on at these "sporting" events.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D58qb...layer_embedded

One of the campaigners against hare coursing has written a book about it also which is free to read online:

http://banbloodsports.files.wordpres...-hare-days.pdf

[C. Flower]

Welcome, Sentinel55.

I'm not a vegetarian, but I don't see the need for live hares to be subjected to this.

There does seem to be a lot of inconsistency about the way we treat different species of animals.

[lying eyes]

This practice should be banned forthwith. It is a savage practice, No excuses it should be abolished. All so called blood sports should not be tolerated.

[Holly]

There is something primitive about people who delight in the wanton cruelty inflicted on any animal.

[Do mháthair]

Anyone caught hare coursing should be captured and brought to a field. Then you release trained rothweilers to hunt them down. Don't worry though the rothweiler will be muzzled.

[Trow]

I'm out and about in the 6 Counties countryside alot and in my lifetime have only come across a few Hare's and one of those sightings was on a 3d coin.

I understand about the stress factor when wild animals are chased/hounded. The practice of Hare coarsing is banned now in the North but like with any Laws up here they're an occupational hazard to some.

It's not just the coarsing at organised events were the ''Greyhound men'' compete against other owners and give the dog a run after live prey but the ''Lercher'' owners who carry this activity out into the fields who are doing the most ''stressing.''

Netting Hares for coarsing trials/events can be big money for some with the hunter and the punter in on the act and bets are placed and crowds come to watch.

It's been going on in Ireland since there was a Hare in Ireland I was approached a few years ago and offered money to provide Rabbits for the coarsing as Hare were in such decline. I was offered more if i could produce a Hare. More ''sport'' with them i hear.

Some of the rogues involved still carry out the coarsing but use rabbits instead. That's not to say the odd Hare is'nt dropped into the run during VIP members only meetings.

[5intheface]

Very lucky to live where hares are seen regularly, I have a clip on my phone of a boxing bout between 2 hares filmed from my back door.

However, as I posted on the fox-hunting thread some time ago;

Last year on this road, a crowd of these people arrived on foot along with a pack of hounds. The farmers next to me remonstrated but a well spoken lady in her 50s stepped forward and expertly quoted by-laws and their sub-sections regarding the lawfulness of their actions as long as the people stayed on public roads.

The neighbours were sent packing with their tails between their legs. They went home, discussed the situation and returned half an hour later, tooled up with high powered rifles to inform 'Rumpole of the Bailey' that if the dogs strayed on to their land, they would blow them to pieces.

Case closed, the hunters left.

Later on, the 2 farmers found a fine white hare we had all been admiring for some time, mauled to death outside an old derelict dwelling house further up the road.

Complete bastards.

[Trow]

Later on, the 2 farmers found a fine white hare we had all been admiring for some time, mauled to death outside an old derelict dwelling house further up the road.
[/I]

Sickening.

[C. Flower]

Lepus timidus hibernicus.

Hare's are quite big, the size of a little dog, moreso than a cat.

I used to cook jugged hare from time to time, until I saw them in the wild. It's a startling sight to see quite a large furry mammal looking at you. Very beautiful.

Rabbits and hares are apparently closer to humans on the "family tree" than many other mammals.

[shutuplaura]

I'll level with people here. I've gone hare coursing many times. I don't care for it as a sport but the objections here are ill informed and unconvincing. For a start, the sport is not in the dogs savaging the hares. The contest is won when a hare is forced to turn and sidestep a faster dog. Hares do get caught and killed, but what are the numbers really? I think the numbers of hares killed in the national championships are published and are in single figures which is pretty modest frankly for a week long event. Balanced against the conservation efforts of coursing bodies, efforts that simply wouldn't happen if the incentive wasn't there, well it works out to the good of the general hare population. Didn't hare populations decline in the North after the ban?

People can talk about farmers deriving sport from watching rabbits or even hares getting torn apart but they should understand that they are not describing coursing as the sport is organised by Bord Na Con. It is describing something that's already been banned (rightly) that a hare coursing ban would not affect.

Its perhaps slightly irrelevant to point out but I've also worked in an industrial slaughter house. One days operation involves more cruelity than a decade of Clonmel coursing meets.

[Holly]

Although I think coursing is barbaric and the people who find it entertaining are not quite right, emotionally, I do believe there are more pressing issues that require our time, such as the persecution of Palestinian people by the Israelis.

[Kev Bar]

Although I think coursing is barbaric and the people who find it entertaining are not quite right, emotionally, I do believe there are more pressing issues that require our time, such as the persecution of Palestinian people by the Israelis.

I got into fierce trouble on the Village Mag FB page a while back for making a similar point.

Apparently you can't be concerned about one without the other or so I am told.

But F@@K me...to deprive me of a good lamb chop wld be a genuine human right's abuse.

[shutuplaura]

Although I think coursing is barbaric and the people who find it entertaining are not quite right, emotionally, I do believe there are more pressing issues that require our time, such as the persecution of Palestinian people by the Israelis.

Hmm. Well if its a barbaric practice carried out by emotionally 'not quite right' people surely it is quite important? If its is as you've described how could it be a trivial matter?

[Holly]

Hmm. Well if its a barbaric practice carried out by emotionally 'not quite right' people surely it is quite important? If its is as you've described how could it be a trivial matter?

It's neither trivial nor of such pressing importance as many other matters of greater priority.

[Sentinel55]

Just replying to a few points: I accept what Holly says about there being more pressing issues than hare coursing in the world. I think that goes without saying and I can see Holly is sincere in making this point.

However, I have noticed at other times that when I tried to discuss the cruelty of coursing with fans of the "sport" they invariably start talking about something else if they fear they might be at the slightest risk of losing the argument, as in "how can you be worried about coursing when the country is in recession, the Taliban are still fighting NATO in Afghanistan, the Syrians are suffering under the dictatorship" etc etc. All extremely important issues and yes, more important any day of the week than hare coursing.

But your regular coursing apologist does not, I have found, introduce these issues into a conversation or debate out of concern for hard-pressed householders, sufferers from negative equity, victims of oppression or earthquakes or anything else, They do so to distract from the one issue they they don't want to talk about, namely the proven and glaringly obvious cruelty of hare coursing. They bring in these issues to effectively close down the conversation.

Also, one can be concerned about the plight of people in the Middle East or anywhere else and also have a view on hare coursing and be concerned about such cruelty to animals.

Re Shutaplura's comments, I don't accept that an animal in a slaughterhouse is cruellty abused given that the creature is stunned before being killed, unless there is a breach of this requirement in which case the animal cruelty laws are being broken and the breach can be investigated. There is a world of difference between killing animal for meat (whatever one thinks of that) and putting an animal through a long drawn out ordeal of utterly unnecessary suffering for the casual amusement of human beings

I've heard before about all the supposed great conservation work done by coursing clubs. In fact they collect hares solely for the purpose of using them as bait in coursing.

Re numbers of hares coursed or killed, the objection to coursing generally is more to do with the cruelty of the "sport" than arising from how many hares are killed or injured.

I didn't suggest that hares were "torn apart". With muzzles they cannot be torn apart but what happens is that the dogs can and do mauled them, strike them at ferocious speeds, severely injure them, and then there is that matter of Capture Myopathy, a condition that in the past was not even considered in the debate over hare coursing.

From the off coursing is cruel, the netting itself is cruel and many hares are injured at this stage and have to be disposed of, the captivity is against the hare's nature and being trained by coursing officials to "run in a straight line". Transporation from one coursing field or compound in small boxes to another is deeply stressful for them.

I suggest again that drag coursing could fill the vacum if the live version were abolished. As a politican said a few years ago on a totally different and unrelated subject, I think we should let the hare sit!

Here are two interesting links, one to a brief clip showing drag coursing and the second to a very informative site dealing with everything to dwith the Irish Hare:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oaYr...layer_embedded

http://www.irishhare.org/