Shame of hares sent to the dogs

Sir — Callers to RTE’s Liveline last week lambasted an Irish army officer who shot elephants and other exotic animals in Zimbabwe, and rightly so, as these magnificent animals are endangered species, apart from their right to live their humble lives in peace.

But spare a thought for the hares that will be forced to run from frenzied dogs at the socalled National Coursing Festival. The gentle Irish hare doesn’t roar like a lion, or carry itself with the elegant gait of a Siberian or African tiger, but it’s surely as entitled to live its simple life free from the “sporting” attention of human predators as any of the exotic fauna that feature in wildlife documentaries.

Thanks to political cowardice and inaction on the part of Ireland’s political establishment, the supposedly “protected” Irish hares will be set up as live bait at a latter-day colosseum in early February.

Deliberate cruelty to wildlife is a crime against the animal kingdom, whether the victim happens to be a mighty elephant, a lumbering hippopotamus swishing its way across a river... or an Irish hare fighting for its life on the coursing Field of Shame. John Fitzgerald, Callan, Co Kilkenny