Sir, – It’s been a pleasant Christmas for many of us, challenging for many others. But for the creatures of field and forest it’s been a living nightmare because, unfortunately, the festive season witnesses an upsurge in recreational killing and tormenting of wildlife.
How sad that some humans can’t let this time of year go by without subjecting animals that are already struggling to survive in their humble and increasingly threatened habitats to unrelenting persecution.
They need that peculiar buzz they get from blasting pheasants out of the sky or at almost point blank range on the ground; or corralling captive hares into compounds and then setting dogs on them for “sport”; or mounting a horse to chase a single fox across country for miles with a baying pack of hounds.
What gives joy to a human participant in this cruelty brings only terror, suffering, or an agonised death to the creatures that find themselves on the butt end of the “fun.”
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With all the talk about saving our biodiversity and fostering awareness of our wonderful (and rapidly disappearing) wildlife heritage, you’d think that such “sports “would by now be unconscionable.
The legislators that permit and even encourage this barbarism are as culpable as the ones who pull the triggers or gleefully watch dogs rip into our wildlife.
It’s time we put an end to these so-called “field sports”. – Yours, etc,
JOHN FITZGERALD,
Callan,
Co Kilkenny.