Hare coursing events refused

national | animal rights | other press Wednesday December 28, 2005 20:12 by Association of Hunt Saboteurs

Irish Times newspaper 26/27th December 2005

Irish Times newspaper 26/27th December 2005
Hare coursing events refused licences
Author: Dan Keenan

Hare coursing events in Tyrone and Antrim have not gone ahead this week
after the Department of the Environment in the North withheld licences
required for trapping hares. The Countryside Alliance has accused ministers
on the Northern Ireland office of imposing their personal views and of
being anti-democratic.

Irish Times newspaper 26/27th December 2005
Hare coursing events refused licences
Author: Dan Keenan

Hare coursing events in Tyrone and Antrim have not gone ahead this week
after the Department of the Environment in the North withheld licences
required for trapping hares. The Countryside Alliance has accused ministers
on the Northern Ireland office of imposing their personal views and of
being anti-democratic.

The Leagues Against Cruel Sports welcomes a temporary Special Protection
Order and called for a ban on hare coursing in response to what it
insisted was a decline in hare numbers.

Members of coursing clubs in Ballymena and Dungannon have been travelling
to events in Co.Donegal and Co.Cavan following the effective banning of
hare coursing in the North.

Fionna Smyth, spokeswoman for the League Against Cruel Sports welcomes the
temporary measures and said her organisation would push for a permanent
ban on hare coursing in Britain to be extended to the North. "We are very
concerned that one of Ireland's best-loved native species appears to be in
decline, " she said. Hare coursing "and all the cruelty associated with
it" should not be allowed to continue.

However, Ronan Gorman of the Irish Countryside Alliance denied hare
numbers
were in decline and said a series of measures had been put in place to
prevents dogs from killing hares at coursing events. He said ministers
were imposing their own views on people here".