There are renewed calls for a ban on cruel foxhunting after the DISMEMBERED LEG OF A FOX was photographed tied to a rope at a hunt in County Clare.
“A fox limb was displayed by one of the hunt on his car bonnet,” the Connaught Hunt Saboteurs reported, adding that the image was captured during an East Clare Harriers hunt on Saturday https://twitter.com/ConnHuntSabs/status/1105914814130520069
The hunt saboteurs were told that at the hunt in Clonusker, County Clare, hunters “had a woodland surrounded as they hunted”.
The East Clare Harriers are affiliated to the Irish Masters of Harriers Association. Harrier hunting involves chasing foxes and hares with a pack of hounds. When the creatures are caught, they are attacked and ripped apart by the dogs.
It is believed that the severed leg of the unfortunate fox may have been dragged along the ground by a hunter on foot or horseback to psyche up the pack of hounds. As the East Clare Harriers have previously identified as also being a drag hunt, the fox’s leg may have been used to lay a scent along the ground for the hounds to follow - during a fox hunt, drag hunt or combination of both.
Also photographed on the day was a “bloodied and shook” hound with his ribcage showing who was “left behind in a bad state on a dangerous road”. The dog was later returned to the hunt.
The East Clare Harriers was formed in 1974. One of its founders was a veterinary surgeon.
A report in the Irish Field in December 2017 detailed the persecution of foxes by the hunt:
- “Hounds moved off to their first draw at Fossabeg, right behind the Scariff GAA pitch. Here lies a new Ash plantation which held. Reynard was spotted slipping away by the ever vigilant Frisk who had hounds on in a thrice and they were away over some nice walls with an occasional bank thrown in for variety…”
- “Sean O’Brien’s bog was the next draw which held [3 foxes]. It took all huntsman Shane Jones’ skill to keep the pack loyal to the hunted fox but he got almost the entire pack away on the chosen fox, toward the Feakle road and on through Pat Reeve’s land, which is currently being farmed by hunt master Pat Jones. Running on through Joe Kavanagh’s farm (who runs the local butchery), hounds hunted on for well over an hour over some challenging country.”
At a different hunt in Westmeath in 2007, a landowner described seeing a fox being tied up with a rope and pulled out of an earth. Quoted in the Irish Independent, the landowner stated: “They tied the rope to his leg and pulled him out of the burrow and fed him straight to the dogs. They ate the fox alive. I didn't realise that they were going to do that." A spokesperson for the Westmeath Hunt admitted at the time that hounds killed the fox but denied that a rope had been tied to the fox’s leg, saying “there is no evidence of this happening, there is no photograph." https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/top-hunt-probed-in-cruelty-claim-26333741.html
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 the removal of an exemption for foxhunting from the Animal Health and Welfare Act. The exemption protects foxhunters from prosecution.
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.