The Irish Council Against Blood Sports (ICABS) is making this appeal: The Minister for Culture, Heritage and Gaeltacht Josepha Madigan will soon be considering a licence application for another season of cruel hare coursing. Please join us in an urgent appeal to the Minister to refuse this licence and give full protection to the Irish Hare - a species which wildlife experts are saying is "in trouble", with numbers having "declined significantly". With growing fears for the future of the Irish Hare, the species urgently needs protection from all threats, including coursing, hunting and shooting. Hare coursing - licensed by Minister Madigan and the National Parks and Wildlife Service - is responsible for major interference with the species during seven months of the year (August to February). Thousands of hares are snatched from the wild in nets, held in captivity for months, manhandled, fed an unnatural diet and eventually forced to run for their lives from pairs of greyhounds. Every coursing season, hares are injured and killed on coursing fields and those who survive the ordeal are at risk of later dying as a result of stress-related capture myopathy. Among those expressing fears for the Irish Hare is ecologist Dr Karina Dingerkus who recently told RTE's Mooney Goes Wild show that "over the last 50 years, numbers have declined significantly." "We know that hare populations do fluctuate naturally but we don't know by how much," Dr Dingerkus stated. "We certainly know that numbers have declined...We don't see very many...Certainly over the past 50 years, we know numbers have dropped dramatically...they're in trouble...we do know that they have been dropping over a long period of time." Mooney Goes Wild reporter Terry Flanagan noted that "there is an overall trend over the past number of years and that trend is downwards." This latest acknowledgement that the Irish Hare is in trouble should set alarm bells ringing in Minister Madigan's office and at the NPWS. They should learn from what happened to the curlew, a bird now on the brink of extinction in Ireland. It wasn't until 2012, when its numbers had plummeted by up to 96%, that a ban on curlew shooting was finally put in place. It is now more clear than ever that the Irish Hare must be given full protection. Urgently contact Minister Josepha Madigan and the National Parks and Wildlife Service and demand that they stop licensing hare coursing and prohibit the hunting and shooting of hares. Minister Josepha Madigan Minister for Culture, Heritage & the Gaeltacht Phone: +353 (0)1 631 3800 Email: josepha.madigan@oireachtas.ie, ministers.office@ahg.gov.ie, wildlifelicence@ahg.gov.ie, john.fitzgerald@ahg.gov.ie, Gerry.Leckey@ahg.gov.ie, nature.conservation@ahg.gov.ie Leave a comment on Facebook: https://facebook.com/JosephaMadiganFG Tweet to: @josephamadigan