While welcoming the news that coursing clubs in Ireland have been forced to call off their "sport" for the next six weeks due to the Covid 19 lockdown, animal protection groups are now focusing on the plight of all those hares being held in captivity, having been caught for the now cancelled coursing fixtures.
 
These animals must be RELEASED IMMEDIATELY, and under supervision of the National Parks and Wildlife Service, to ensure that the coursing clubs that hold them do not retain them until the current lockdown ends on December 1st.
 
Another danger they face if held in captivity is that some of them may be used to blood dogs in training sessions. Unfit or injured animals are especially at risk. Hares are often injured when they become entangled in the nets used to capture them. These almost always end up serving as tethered lures. Hares may also fall ill in captivity, again making them attractive to cruel or unscrupulous trainers in search of live bait to feed to greyhounds.
 
We're appealing to the Minister for Housing and Heritage, Darragh O' Brien, to order the release of the "lockdown hares."
 
They have already endured the stess and terror of being snatched from their natural habitat, manhandled by coursing officials, and "trained" to run in a prescribed and unnatural manner in accordance with the bizarre "rules" of Irish coursing.
 
Added to this threatening milleu is the danger posed by the deadly RHD2 virus, a disease that is fatal to hares and that can be spread by coursing itself.
 
Here's a sample message to the Minister...or you could compose one of your own:
 
Mr. Darragh O' Brien TD,
Minister for Housing and Heritage,
Government of Ireland
 
Dear Minister O' Brien,
 
I note that you have intervened to halt the cruel practice of hare coursing for the duration of the Level Five Covid 19 lockdown and this is a welcome development.
 
However, I draw your attention to the fact that hundreds of hares captured recently for the now cancelled fixtures are still in captivity at coursing veneus all over Ireland.
 
Will you please see to it that these animals are released back into the wild under strict supervision so that they cannot come to harm in the coming weeks?
 
On the wider issue of animal cruelty I urge you to support an outright ban on hare coursing, but, right now, will you at least intervene to save the "lockdown hares" from man's inhumanity?
 
Thanking you,
 
Email to:  minister@housing.gov.ie, darragh.obrien@oireachtas.ie