ANIMAL RIGHTS groups have called on the Minister for the Environment not to issue hare netting licences this year.
Wild hares are caught in September and used as part of the sport of hare coursing, which begins in October.
The Irish Council Against Blood Sports and the Animal Rights Action Network (Aran) protested outside the Custom House, home of the Department of the Environment, yesterday.
They were joined by Independent TD Maureen O’Sullivan and Noel Gregory, brother of the late Tony Gregory.
Activists said they feared that Minister for the Environment John Gormley would shortly issue licences to coursing clubs to allow them to net the hares. These licences are then used at course meetings around the country where the hares are released to be chased by greyhounds.
But a spokesman for Mr Gormley said “no decision has been made as of yet” regarding the issuing of licences to trap hares.
No legislation will be signed until the Minister returns from his holidays, the spokesman said.
Activists say coursing leads to the death of many of the 7,000 hares used in the sport every year and numbers are declining in the wild. Coursing enthusiasts claim most hares escape unharmed.
Ms O’Sullivan said one of the major regrets of the late Tony Gregory was that more hadn’t been done for animal rights in his lifetime. She had always shared his views on animal rights, she said, and hoped to continue his work against coursing.
“It is absolutely vicious, I couldn’t look at the video footage of coursing, how people call that a sport, I do not know,” Ms O’Sullivan said. She praised Mr Gormley’s work on fur farming and puppy farms and called on him to address hare coursing.
Aideen Yourell, spokeswoman for the Irish Council Against Blood Sports, said there has been a five-year ban on coursing in the North because of declining numbers of hares, but Mr Gormley had turned a blind eye to the problem.
“It’s time for Minister John Gormley to live up to his Green credentials and move to give the hare the protection it so desperately needs,” she said.
“He should stand up to Brian Cowen and his pro-coursing Fianna Fáil buddies and call time on this barbarism.”
John Carmody, founder of Aran, said Mr Gormley had infuriated many of his own party members by issuing licences last year.
“He is flying directly in the face of the membership of the Green Party,” he said.
The department noted that its role was confined to licensing the trapping of hares, while course meetings were licensed by the Department of Sport.
Since muzzling was introduced in 1994 an average of 95 per cent of the 5,000 hares captured annually by coursing clubs are returned to the wild, the department added.