There are renewed calls for a ban on foxhunting after it emerged that eight foxes ran for their lives and two were caught by a pack of hounds at a recent hunt in Kilkenny.
The sickening details of the 7-hour hunt, involving 30 dogs and 20 hunters on foot, appear in the latest edition of Countrysports and Country Life magazine.
A report relating to the Rockview Harriers hunt, which took place south of Jerpoint Abbey near Thomastown in Kilkenny, outlines that “hounds engaged in several very good chases up and down a long, attractive, wooded glen...a place where we gave chase to no less than eight foxes, catching two of them.”
It goes on to reveal that there was “an almighty commotion” when five foxes were flushed out of a drain.
One of these foxes ran in a “very wide circuit” before attempting to return to the drain. According to the report, the fox “was almost at it, when a few hounds caught up with him and called it a day.”
Another fox seen running for his life was described as a “smallish fox which was going like a bat out of hell". This unfortunate fox "scrambled like a lunatic up over a tall, dry stone wall with the hounds only a few centimetres behind it.”
How obscene that in 2019, Irish wildlife has to suffer this appalling persecution. A ban on foxhunting and all bloodsports is long overdue in Ireland. Please respond to the action alert below and demand a ban.
ACTION ALERT
Contact the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar and appeal to 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
Leave a comment on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/campaignforleo/
Tweet to: @campaignforLeo
Contact the Minister for Agriculture and demand the removal of an exemption for foxhunting from the Animal Health and Welfare Act. Section 12 of the Act, which deals with “Prohibition on animal cruelty” states: “Nothing in this section applies in relation to anything which occurs in the ordinary course of...lawfully hunting an animal, unless the animal is released in an injured, mutilated or exhausted condition”
Michael Creed TD
Minister for Agriculture
Kildare Street, Dublin 2.
Email: michael.creed@oir.ie
Tel: +353 (0)1-607 2000 or LoCall 1890-200510.
Leave a comment on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michaelcreedtd
Tweet to: @creedcnw
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.
Support our campaign with a donation
https://www.paypal.me/banbloodsports