Sir, – While saddened by the prospect of a mink cull to prevent a worsening of the Covid-19 pandemic, I welcome the fact that this will hasten the demise of a cruel practice that should have been banned decades ago ("Department in talks with mink farms over plan to cull 120,000 animals", News, November 19th).
Mink are not native to Ireland, and belong in the wide open countryside and the waterways; not cooped up in cages waiting to be dragged out after a few miserable months of confinement to be gassed.
Fur farming is one of those activities that have fallen victim to Covid-19 and it won’t be missed by anyone with even a scintilla of compassion for animals.
Another should be hare coursing. The season has been suspended until December 1st and more than 1,200 hares have been released from captivity in coursing compounds nationwide.
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Those of us campaigning for wildlife protection believe that coursing should go the way of fur farming.
The hare is a solitary creature, unaccustomed to the conditions it finds itself in once captured: confined for several weeks in a paddock or compound with dozens of other hares. Captivity is itself deeply stressful and unnatural for the animal, and hares can literally die of fright when faced with aggressive manhandling by humans.
They don’t belong in cages, large or small, and being chased by dogs in a contrived environment with hundreds of gamblers gathered around is far removed from its natural setting, despite idiotic claims that this activity resonates with the workings of nature.
Hare coursing had no place in the 18th century let alone the 21st.
It should now follow fur farming into the dustbin of history. – Yours, etc,
JOHN FITZGERALD,
Callan,
Co Kilkenny.
A chara, – It is even more disturbing than the culling of the mink themselves, to think that us humans breed and enslave millions of animals just to satisfy our own greed and vanity, caging them until they are ready to be commodified into fake eyelashes and fashionable fur.
Is it any surprise that when we rapaciously plummet the earth of its resources and abuse other species for our own gain that the earth bites back? – Is mise,
BILLY Ó HANLUAIN,
Kimmage,
Dublin 12.