DR CLIVE R. SYMMONS,
Sir, - As a small landowner in Co Meath, I am concerned at how wild, lowland hares appear to be disappearing from the Irish countryside. My evidence for this is simply regular personal observation over the past 12 years or so in respect of the same piece of land.
Some years back I could guarantee seeing hares regularly on my private ("hare-friendly") nature reserve. Now if I walk the land I am lucky to see an occasional hare, and almost never two or more at a time. I can only conclude from my own experience as a keen nature lover that the hare population, in the east of Ireland at any rate, is under serious threat.
I am especially concerned that the deplorable netting activities of coursing organisations (and subsequent hare deaths due to confinement and use for the so-called "sport" of coursing) may be the prime reason for bringing the lowland Irish hare population down.
Added to this, quite apart from increasing loss of suitable habitats for breeding, there is the added factor of basically uncontrolled and largely unregulated hunting of hares (including beagling); as well, I fear, as clandestine (and illegal) "unofficial coursing" of hares on private land. (Why else should strangers, without guns, be found on my land. with hunting dogs such as lurchers?).
I note that in Northern Ireland new legislation has recently been introduced to require Northern coursing clubs not only to apply to the Department of the Environment, on an individual basis, for a licence to net hares for coursing, but also to give reasons (I assume of a conservational nature) for continuing such activities. I can only conclude from this that the Northern authorities are perceiving a similar threat to the hare population there, and are doing something about it.
If no immediate Government action is taken to control, and preferably stop, the widespread netting (and use) of hares for coursing here, I expect the situation to get progressively worse. At the very least the Government Department responsible for wildlife, the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, should be carrying out an immediate comprehensive survey on existing numbers of hares in Ireland so that the state of hare populations throughout Ireland can be objectively assessed. - Yours, etc.
DR CLIVE R. SYMMONS,
Macetown,
Tara,
Co Meath.