The Citizens Assembly in Ireland is considering threats to the country’s wildlife and the loss of biodiversity.

Opponents of the cruel practice of hare coursing, which is still legal in Ireland, are asking the Assembly to recommend a ban on the practice.

As a campaigner against this practice in Ireland I attended coursing events and I have watched hares being hounded in all weathers: twisting, turning and dodging on muddy fields, in torrential rain, or wind storms, or with snow falling on the so-called sporting venues.

I have seen them being mauled, and flung skyward by the dogs as grown men laughed and marked their betting cards. I have listened to the child-like sobbing of hares that were struck forcibly in the chase or had their bones crushed.

Cruelty aside, the Irish Hare has been in decline for the past half century and is threatened by the arrival of the deadly RHD2 virus in the Irish countryside. This disease is fatal to hares and can be spread by the use of nets by coursing clubs to capture them and their confinement in cramped compounds for weeks.

Please ask the Assembly to call for an immediate end to hare coursing:

You can use the sample letter below or compose a message of your own. Email it to:

submissions@citizensassembly.ie

Dear Sir/Madam,

We understand you are considering the various threats to Ireland’s biodiversity. In this context we appeal to you to prioritize the plight of the Irish Hare, a native Irish mammal that has been in decline for the past fifty years and is at the mercy of so-called “sportsmen” who use it as live bait in the cruel practice of coursing.

Coursing, aside from the suffering it causes to hares, poses an existential threat to the entire species because it risks spreading the deadly RHD2 virus which is fatal to hares and rabbits.

The use of nets to capture hares for coursing has been identified as one of the ways that this disease can be spread, and the confinement of hares in captivity by coursing clubs further increases the risk of contamination.

So, when reporting back to the government on the status of Ireland’s biodiversity, would you please recommend a complete ban on hare coursing?

To propose the advancement of Ireland’s wildlife heritage while allowing this obscenity to continue should be unthinkable.

For the sake of the persecuted Irish Hare, and for the sake of Ireland's reputation, please call for an end to this abuse of a gentle and inoffensive creature. The hare’s only crime is to have born in a country where coursing is legal.

Thanking you