A fox was chased across a river twice during a shameful hunt in Wicklow, it has emerged.
According to a sickening report this month in the Irish Field, the unfortunate fox was being pursued by hunters on horseback and a pack of 31 hounds during a joint-meeting of the Shillelagh Hunt and Kildare Foxhounds.
“Hounds found in Stanley’s and ran on for Peter Morrin’s and through the forestry where the fox and the pack jumped the Crann River and crossed the Crann road running right-handed in a circle,” the report outlines. “But he [the fox] decided that he wanted to head back and crossed the Crann road again just in front of Amy Roche and jumped the river again. He did a loop at the back of John Forrestal’s house and eventually went to ground.”
“Going to ground”, in hunting terminology, refers to when the terrified fox tries to find refuge from the pack of approaching hounds by running down into an earth or drain. It may be followed by hunt terriermen being called in to send terriers after the fox. The terriers attack and corner the fox while the hunters dig the clay away from above before pulling the fox out and killing him.
Later in the day during the hunt in Wicklow, hounds found two more foxes “that were content to hunt in circles before they went to ground”.
Among those at the hunt were jockey Robbie Jackson and “Karen Moore, a veterinary nurse in Sycamore Lodge on the Curragh [who] rode the winner of the charity race in Punchestown last April”.
ACTION ALERT
Contact the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar and urge him to ban fox hunting.
An Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar
Upper Merrion St, Dublin 2
Telephone: +353 (0)1-6194020
Email: taoiseach@taoiseach.gov.ie, leo.varadkar@oireachtas.ie
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Contact the Minister for Agriculture now and demand a ban on foxhunting.
Michael Creed TD
Minister for Agriculture
Department of Agriculture
Kildare Street, Dublin 2.
Email: michael.creed@oir.ie
Tel: +353 (0)1-607 2000 or LoCall 1890-200510.
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Appeal to all Irish politicians
Please join us in telling the Irish Government that it is now time to ban foxhunting. Contact all your local TDs and urge them to push for a ban on this blood sport. Visit the Oireachtas website for names of TDs and their email addresses http://www.oireachtas.ie/members-hist/default.asp?housetype=0&HouseNum=32&disp=mem
Write to your TDs at: Dail Eireann, Leinster House, Kildare Street, Dublin 2. Tel: 01-618 3000 or 1890 337 889. Please also arrange a meeting with your TDs at their local clinics.
Keep hunters off your land
If you are a landowner, make your land off-limits to hunters. Find out more about how to do this on our Farmers/Landowners Page - http://www.banbloodsports.com/farmers.htm Encourage all land-owning friends and family members in the countryside to show compassion and make their land a haven for wildlife. If hunters are denied access to land, the wildlife will be spared the suffering of cubhunting and foxhunting.
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