Madam, - This month Minister for the Environment John Gormley will decide whether or not to grant a licence to the country's only stag hunt.
The "sport" involves the pursuit with hounds of a farmed or domesticated stag that is released from a cart for the chase. The hunt chases the animal across country for an hour or two until it collapses from exhaustion.
In the course of being chased, the stag is severely injured, becoming tangled up in barbed wire, thorn bushes and brambles along the way. Some hunted stags have dropped dead from heart attacks. Others have drowned in rivers into which they were hounded.
The deer used are bred in captivity and therefore cannot be classified as wild creatures. The Protection of Animals Acts 1911 and 1965 prohibit the hunting or baiting of domestic animals or farm livestock and there is a widespread belief in legal, environmental, and animal welfare circles that the activity is in breach of this legislation.
The only other similar hunt on this island, in Co Down, was banned for using farmed or domesticated deer contrary to Northern Ireland's animal protection law, which is very similar to the Republic's.
In 2004, an RTÉ Prime Time programme featured an interview with a Trinity law professor who offered his professional legal opinion that stag hunting was flouting the law because the deer being used were indeed domestic animals and not wild deer. He stressed that there was "no ambiguity whatsoever" about this legal situation.
A Department of Agriculture report that was severely critical of stag hunting remained published for seven years, coming to light only in Autumn 2003 as a result of a Dáil question tabled by Tony Gregory TD. It found that the transportation and chasing of the deer was inhumane, as was the capture of the animals. It also highlighted the appalling injuries suffered by hunted stags.
In 2004, the Government ignored a plea from the National Parks and Wildlife Service not to issue a stag hunt licence because the deer to be hunted could not be viewed as wildlife as defined by the Wildlife Act.
We appeal to the Minister to heed the well-documented and compelling evidence against carted stag-hunting. There is simply no need or justification for the practice. It has no conservation or pest control value whatsoever. - Yours, etc,
JOHN FITZGERALD,
Campaign for the Abolition Of Cruel Sports,
Callan,
Co Kilkenny.