The Irish Council Against Blood Sports today makes an urgent appeal to farmers and other landowners to refuse permission to coursing clubs to net hares from their lands for use as live lures before greyhounds at enclosed coursing meetings.

We make this plea to the farmers, who are the real custodians of Ireland's wildlife heritage, to over-ride the licence granted this week to the Irish Coursing Club by Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, to take thousands of hares from the wild.

The power now rests with the farmers and landowners to refuse permission to coursers with nets entering their lands, and we urge them to use this power in the

interests of the conservation of the Irish hare, and its protection from cruelty and abuse.

Farmers are being asked to download and display copies of our new "Hare Sanctuary" poster which uses the slogan "No Coursing, No Netting, No Hunting". The poster can be downloaded from the Farmers section of our website at www.banbloodsports.com

The fact that coursers have a licence from the Minister for the Environment doesn't give them the right to enter privately owned lands, and we call on farmers to exercise their absolute rights and keep these people out.

Just last May, Minister Gormley himself issued a major report on the status of Ireland's wildlife and habitats, which warned that the conservation status of Irish hares was 'POOR'.

It was also highlighted in a report obtained by ICABS under FOI that coursers complained of a lack of hares in the countryside. Despite this compelling evidence of the threat to the Irish hare, Minister Gormley went ahead and issued a licence for the netting and disturbance of up to 7,500 hares from the wild.

The coursers will be out with their nets up and down the country during the coursing season (September 1st to February) and we ask farmers and landowners to be vigilant.

We have no doubt that Irish farmers in the main value the presence of hares on their lands, and we earnestly appeal to them to use their rights and powers to protect the hare from the abuse that is live hare coursing.

Aideen Yourell
Spokesperson
Irish Council Against Blood Sports