Seen here with Saplings for the coming season
should get some fun out of this lot!
Carrick Sam with Turlogh
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Carrick Sam
While I was up in Northern Ireland last month I popped into see Pearce OHagan .......hes some top quality broods there and had a nice few litters this spring.
Anyone on the lookout for a pup could do alot worst than giving Pearce a call.......this years pups are corkers
JUST SOME STUFF
I found the NATIONAL COURSING CLUB website on the Net today............this is taken from it......worth a read I think
WHAT THE PAPERS SAY
Tory plan to overturn hunt ban
David Cameron plans to repeal the hunting ban if the Conservatives win the next general election, in a simple one-line Bill.
The strategy is revealed in a private letter to MPs which instructs them to reassure "our friends in the hunting world" that a Tory government would overturn the Hunting Act as a matter of urgency.
It comes as hunts across England and Wales marked the second anniversary of the ban coming into force by turning out in large numbers to go trail hunting this weekend.
The letter, from David Maclean, the former Tory chief whip, who says he is writing on behalf of Mr Cameron, says: "Over the last few months colleagues have been speculating on the different ways we could honour our commitment.
"There is a danger that our straightforward commitment to bring a Bill before Parliament to repeal the Act. . . could get confused. All colleagues are therefore urged to simply repeat our commitment to repeal the Act. This would be, of course, on a free vote."
By Melissa Kite, Deputy Political Editor, Sunday Telegraph, 18.2.07
Now we know - bullets are far crueller than dogs
More foxes, deer and hares are dying now - and more inhumanely - than before the ill-conceived Hunting Act. Two years ago today, after a series of free votes in the House of Commons, the Hunting Act became law. Its aim was to bring to an end the apparent suffering which mammals experienced while being hunted by dogs.
Can I therefore be the only person in Britain who is now more anguished at the way these animals are being killed today than I ever was before? And can I be alone in thinking that the act, like so many others passed by this government, has achieved the exact reverse of what it was intended to do? More foxes, more deer and more hares are dying now than ever before and in ways that are very much more cruel…
When it comes to the hare, the figures are grotesque, a slaughter on an unparalleled scale. In the last year of hare coursing - and coursers keep precise statistics because greyhounds are matched in knock-out competition - 180 hares were killed in 1,462 courses on 71 days on 10 purely coursing estates. The next year, on the same estates, 8,000 hares were shot.
On one estate, according to National Coursing Club figures, 330 hares were shot in one day. A fortnight before, when coursing was still legal, just nine hares were killed there. 'Everyone knew what the consequences of the ban would be,' I was told by Charles Blanning, the secretary of the National Coursing Club. 'We told MPs and ministers so at meetings we had prior to the bill being published. But they didn't care. They had a single-issue agenda which was to get rid of hunting and hare coursing and damn the consequences. They're really not interested in animals.'
Before the act, hares lived off the land consuming crops until they were chased, perhaps only once in their lives, by two competing greyhounds for about 20 or so seconds. Statistically, eight out of nine of them survived to resume their lives off the land around them. Farmers claim that five hares can eat as much as one sheep, so there is no longer any point in affording them grazing…
God knows what set of statistics is needed before someone attempts to repeal this appalling act. It has caused the value of foxes, deer and hare to become debased, their status and worth so reduced that deer and hare are now nothing but meat and the fox mere vermin.
Most civilised urban and suburban people probably supported the ban on hunting because in some way they felt it would benefit wild mammals. It is a very difficult concept for them to grasp that the very opposite is true. Perhaps to understand fully the conundrum, we need to anthropomorphise more, not less. For if I were a fox or a deer, I'd be begging for a return to 2004. And if I were a hare, I'd be down on my knees praying for the good old days of coursing where, for 20 seconds of supposed terror, everything was a free lunch.
John Dodd lives in the Hampshire countryside. He does not hunt, shoot or fish and has nothing to do with any countryside organisation.
By John Dodd, The Observer, 18.2.07
HARE BRAINS NEEDED
Coursing is a sport in waiting but there’s no need to stand idle until the next General Election is announced.
Coursing supporters have argued for years that they know more than anyone else about the brown hare. It’s as simple as one two three. If you have coursing on the land, you have plenty of hares.
Now coursers can put their knowledge to good use at the same time as raising the conservation profile of their sport. The current Biodiversity Action Plans invite local involvement, and their target is to double the brown hare population in this country by 2010. Whether such an ambitious target is feasible is debatable, and objective and knowledgeable monitors are essential. You will have a local county-level contact who will be pleased to hear from someone who has practical knowledge and data about hares.
It all started in 1992 with the United Nations’ Convention on Biological Diversity. The UK Biodiversity Partnerships were set up in 2002.
No need to conceal where you are coming from. Coursing will benefit immeasurably from your involvement. If the Hunting Act is repealed, it is likely to be followed by animal welfare legislation for which coursing must have prepared impeccable conservation credentials. We must get ready now.
For all the details of Biodiversity Action Plans go to www.ukbap.org.uk , or have a chat about it with Charles Blanning on 01638 667381.
THE WAY AHEAD
Competitive coursing in England and Wales stands at a crossroads. We all should understand that it may take four years or more before a new government is able to repeal the Hunting Act 2004 so that competitive coursing may resume. When that challenge has been won, we must ensure that we are ready for the restoration of our historic sport.
THE NATIONAL COURSING CLUB
The objective of the National Coursing Club in the period following the passing of the Hunting Act 2004 is to assist at the next General Election in every way possible the return of a government pledged to repeal the Hunting Act. The National Coursing Club will retain its full-time and professional staff so that the NCC continues to work tirelessly for coursing as it has done for the past 150 years.
The National Coursing Club will continue to administer and publish the Greyhound Stud Book.
The Club will continue to be regulated by its published Constitution And Bye-Laws. Its statutory meetings and elections will take place as normal. Only Clubs which were affiliated on June 1st 2005 will be eligible for affiliation, and those clubs must ensure that they continue to observe the requirements of their affiliation. The Standing Committee will accept as replacement Club Representatives only persons who were coursers of repute before June 1st 2005.
THE POLITICAL BATTLE
The National Coursing Club remains in close touch with “Vote OK”, the lobbying organization which enjoyed such dramatic success at the General Election. Vote OK organized teams of pro-coursing and hunting volunteers to assist in unseating anti MPs. These were so successful that anti MPs lost their seats in 29 of the 50 constituencies targeted. We must be prepared to do as much and much more again at bye-elections and the next General Election.
The National Coursing Club is fortunate in that its Chairman, Sally Merison, is an elected member of the Board of the Countryside Alliance. She also attends every meeting of the Council of Hunting Associations which spearheads the Countryside Alliance’s attack on the Hunting Act. Coursing supporters may be confident that their voices will be heard loud and clear.
The showing of Paul Yule’s film, “The Last Waterloo Cup”, was a landmark for coursing. Never before has the sport received such fair and effective coverage on prime time TV; the film being shown at 9.00 pm on a Friday evening and attracting an audience of 1.9 million viewers. Paul Yule is an award-winning film director with a reputation for tackling controversial subjects with total integrity, and his view of coursing will be seen by media experts as honest and unbiased. We need as many people as possible to see this film. Why not buy a copy and send it to your MP with the promise that in a month’s time you will visit his constituency surgery and discuss it with him? You can obtain DVD or video copies of the film from Berwick Universal, 45 Brookfield, London N6 6AT for £19.99 plus £2.50 post and packing.
THE DOGS
Coursing supporters may well feel confused and frustrated by how the Hunting Act affects them. They see packs of fox, stag, and mink hounds continuing to hunt, almost as normal, “within the law.”
Coursing supporters need to understand that the Hunting Act did not deal with coursing and hunting with an even hand. The Long Title of the Hunting Act – what it says on the tin – states that it is an Act “to make provision about hunting wild mammals with dogs; to prohibit hare coursing…” The Act prohibits competitive coursing events. We should all understand, however, that we enjoy the same exemptions under the Act as fox, stag, and mink hunters to hunt hares with greyhounds.
Exempt Hunting With Greyhounds
(Extracts from the Hunting Act are italicized)
Coursing Events
The Hunting Act 2004 prohibits hare coursing events. “A ‘hare coursing event’ is a competition in which dogs are, by the use of live hares, assessed as to skill in hunting hares.”
Although competitive coursing is explicitly illegal under the Act, several relevant forms of hunting are exempt. The Act states no limit to the number of people who may gather together for these exempt activities.
Stalking and flushing out
You may use a maximum of two dogs to stalk or flush out a hare as long as the following conditions are observed; that you do so to prevent the hare from causing damage to crops or growing timber, or to obtain meat for human or animal consumption. You also are obliged to take “reasonable steps” to ensure that “as soon as possible after being found or flushed out the wild mammal is shot dead by a competent person.” The dogs should be kept “under sufficiently close control” to ensure that they do not interfere with the shooting of the hare. Significantly, the Act does not indicate for how long the process of flushing out may continue.
Rabbiting
You may hunt rabbits on your own land or, on other people’s land with permission of the landowner. If you do not own the land, you would be well-advised to carry a letter of permission from the landowner. We all would sympathize with the salutary experience in a “Newsnight” interview of the Labour MP for an urban Scottish constituency who had proposed a Private Member’s Bill to ban coursing. The MP was shown two photographs by Jeremy Paxman, one of a hare and one of a rabbit, and was asked to say which was which. He was unable to do so. If so challenged, particularly if the animal is in motion, will we, or the challenger, be able to do better?
Retrieval Of Hares
Hunting hares which have been shot, on land on which you have permission, is exempt. The Report of the Burns Inquiry noted with concern the rate of wounding in hare shoots. It is inevitable that a certain proportion of hares are wounded in shooting and subsequently might require dispatch by greyhounds. This exemption, of course, may be coupled with that of Stalking and flushing out for those who prefer to wear both a belt and braces.
Falconry
It is exempt hunting, on land where you have permission, to flush a hare from cover to enable a bird of prey to hunt it.
Coursing In Eire
Some coursing owners already have been lucky enough to run their dogs at Irish Coursing Club meetings, The Sevenhouses meeting in Co Kildare in January 2006 ran a 32-runner Seamus Hughes International with sixteen places for Waterloo Cup nominators. Enquiries about Irish coursing may be made to the Irish Coursing Club, Davis Road, Clonmel, Co Tipperary, Eire tel 00 353 5222 611. The ICC has a website at www.sportingpress.ie .
Other Greyhound Sports
Lure racing is an enjoyable way of bringing old friends and dogs together. Successful meetings have been run already in Norfolk, Wiltshire, and Yorkshire, some for mixed breeds. The Yorkshire Greyhound Club has been formed specially for the purpose, and ensures that its meetings are open only to members of a coursing club, and that the greyhounds will run in their stud book names and ownerships. Field trials with greyhounds, assessing their usefulness in the flushing of game for shooting, are another enjoyable way of testing dogs.
LEAGUE AGAINST CRUEL SPORTS
V
WRIGHT
Barnstaple Magistrates Court: 31st July, 1st, 2nd, & 4th August 2006
The private prosecution of the Huntsman of the Exmoor Foxhounds, Tony Wright, may seem a long way from the concerns of coursing people, but the judgment of Mr Justice Farmer raises several issues which coursers might consider carefully when employing the exemptions of the Hunting Act 2004 to hunt hares with greyhounds. These exemptions are explained above.
Mr Farmer conceded in para 13 of his judgment, “It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under Schedule) 1 in respect of hunting to show that he reasonably believed that the hunting was exempt.” He continues in para 14, “The burden is on the defence to prove reasonable belief on the balance of probabilities.”
Mr Farmer turned in para 18 to the Chambers dictionary to define “flushing”, the procedure which the exemptions permit with two dogs in shooting or a field trial: “flush vi to start up like and alarmed bird vt To rouse and cause to start off, to force from concealment (without) n the act of starting; a bird or a flock of birds so started.”
Mr Farmer listed his related concerns as follows in para 23:
“i) The requirement that “as soon as possible” after being found or flushed the wild mammal is shot dead by a competent person, raises 3 issues for the Court
a) How long is “as soon as possible”
b) How many, and how do you deploy competent marksmen
c) Have the steps been reasonable
ii) Each dog used in flushing has to be under sufficiently close control not to prevent or obstruct the ability of the mammal to be shot.”
Mr Farmer, after watching video evidence and listening to the hunt servants, concluded in para 24, that because “as soon as possible” might mean “up to 2 or 3 minutes”…”This in my view goes far beyond any definition of “flushing.” The position must surely be – after the fox is flushed, the hounds should be called off.”
Mr Farmer repeats in para 34 “with approval” the comments of a Scottish judge trying a similar case: “flushing, that activity will require to be accompanied by realistic, and one would expect, effective arrangements for the shooting of the pest species. The use of what might be termed “token guns” or what was described by the Crown as paying lip service to the legislation is not available …as a justification.”
It was on this basis that Mr Farmer found Tony Wright guilty of illegal hunting. He considered that the hounds were not under control as they were often some distance from the huntsman, and that reasonable attempts to shoot the flushed foxes were not made as the sole gun was often a kilometre or more distant from the hounds and huntsman. “I am not satisfied to the required standard, namely the balance of probabilities, that Mr Wright reasonably believed that the hunting was exempt. It was in my view an attempt to use the exemption in a way that it was clearly not designed for…” (para35)
It should be noted that Mr Farmer’s judgment was given in a private prosecution where a case only needs to be proven to “the balance of probabilities.” A public prosecution would require to be proven beyond reasonable doubt. It should also be noted that a judgment in a junior court of this kind may not set a legal precedent, and also that Tony Wright will appeal against the verdict.
We would be complacent, however, if we ignored the questions which the Farmer judgment raises concerning use of the exemptions of the Hunting Act 2004 to “reasonably believe” that our hunting of hares with greyhounds is exempt. A reading of the judgment would require anyone using the exemptions in their defence to look carefully at the issues of 1) whether the dogs may be said to be under control 2) how long after the hare is flushed the dogs remain in pursuit and 3) the steps taken to ensure that the hare is shot. The first two issues also would apply to the Falconry exemption. The exemptions which appear to remain unaffected by the Farmer judgment are those concerning Rabbiting and Retrieval Of Hares which have been shot.
MADNESS, MADNESS – MADNESS”
by Sir Mark Prescott
How many hours did Parliament devote to debating the war in Iraq? The answer is 41 hours. How many have died since that war began? If you believe independent sources 220,000 men, women and children.
How many hours did Parliament devote to debating the war in Afghanistan? The answer is 22 hours. How many human beings have died since that war began? If you believe the same independent sources again, it is in excess of 70,000 men, women and children.
How many hours have Parliament devoted to debating “Hunting with Dogs”? Answer: 700 hours. How many hares died coursing last year (wait for it) exactly 169!
If you told the Man on the Moon that 700 hours of Parliamentary time were devoted to 169 hares and only 63 hours to killing 290,000 human beings, he would scarcely believe you.
If you then described how, after 700 hours of debate and deep consideration, the Mother of all Parliaments, incorporating presumably the finest brains in the Kingdom, had fine tuned and honed a Bill, to such an extent that it had resulted in it being legal to kill a rabbit but illegal to kill a hare, the Man on the Moon would think you were joking.
If you then explained that such an offence would incur a £5,000 fine or 6 months in prison, but that almost no politician, few policemen and certainly not a dog in the world can tell the difference between a hare and a rabbit, the Man on the Moon would surely be convinced he was the victim of an elaborate joke.
Famously a BBC newsreader, some years ago, having introduced without comment footage of a Garda policeman’s dying body, partially covered by a tarpaulin, with blood pumping down the gutter, prefaced the next news item with the words “What you are about to see now, may prove disturbing” and proceeded to show footage of the Waterloo Cup. But what really is disturbing is that probably that newsreader was right to issue a warning, for modern man is so divorced, by supermarket packaging and cellophane, from the realities of nature and animal husbandry that the sight of two dogs pursuing a hare as Nature has decreed for the last 4,000 years probably is distressing.
For modern man is totally ignorant of the fact that the hare is the only mammal in creation with complete vision behind and an 180 degree blind arc in front (and now you know why it always jinks prior to disappearing through a small hole in a hedge!) When pursued it knows exactly what it is doing, for it is perfectly adapted for pursuit, and if fit, healthy and alert it will live (only 1 in 9 hares coursed are killed), but if it is slow, ill or stupid it will die (but never be wounded). This process is called Natural Selection, the survival of the fittest, upon which, as Darwin told us, depends the survival of every species in the world.
However, the hare was not designed by Evolution to evade guns, or cars it cannot see, nor to perceive the dangers of toxic sprays. Yet modern man is happy to tolerate the annual unselective slaughter and wounding of hundreds of thousands of hares by such methods, yet balk and legislate against coursing, a selective means of control, that conserves thousands each year on coursing estates yet kills only 169 animals, and those selectively, as Evolution decrees.
It is agreed by all that a banning Bill will, in total, not result in one hare’s life being saved and, further, in the words of the Game Conservancy investigation into hare numbers, “It is only on hare coursing estates that hare numbers are on the increase against the National trend”. It is an undoubted fact that, should coursing be banned, hundreds of greyhounds from off the tracks and from the Irish coursing fields, who are too cunning or too slow to earn their place will have no second career in the English coursing field. Both the dogs and the hares will all be adversely affected by a ban.
Four independent enquiries in 40 years have found in coursing’s favour; three of the last four Directors of the League Against Cruel Sports have changed their minds on its abolition. Yet modern man persists in attempting to end Britain’s oldest field sport and with it one of our oldest sporting traditions “The Waterloo Cup”.
Ban coursing and thousands of hares currently conserved will annually be shot. Hundreds of dogs will have no future and only 169 hares will be saved.
As the Man on the Moon looks down on this scene of self inflicted destruction, he can only reflect, in those saddest of closing lines to that much loved British film “The Bridge over the River Kwai”, “Madness, madness – madness!”
Sir Mark Prescott, Bt.
19th January, 2005
THE LAST WATERLOO CUP
To order copies of the film, please send £19.99 + £2.50 p&p each, stating whether VHS or DVD
WHAT THE PAPERS SAY
Tory plan to overturn hunt ban
David Cameron plans to repeal the hunting ban if the Conservatives win the next general election, in a simple one-line Bill.
The strategy is revealed in a private letter to MPs which instructs them to reassure "our friends in the hunting world" that a Tory government would overturn the Hunting Act as a matter of urgency.
It comes as hunts across England and Wales marked the second anniversary of the ban coming into force by turning out in large numbers to go trail hunting this weekend.
The letter, from David Maclean, the former Tory chief whip, who says he is writing on behalf of Mr Cameron, says: "Over the last few months colleagues have been speculating on the different ways we could honour our commitment.
"There is a danger that our straightforward commitment to bring a Bill before Parliament to repeal the Act. . . could get confused. All colleagues are therefore urged to simply repeat our commitment to repeal the Act. This would be, of course, on a free vote."
By Melissa Kite, Deputy Political Editor, Sunday Telegraph, 18.2.07
Now we know - bullets are far crueller than dogs
More foxes, deer and hares are dying now - and more inhumanely - than before the ill-conceived Hunting Act. Two years ago today, after a series of free votes in the House of Commons, the Hunting Act became law. Its aim was to bring to an end the apparent suffering which mammals experienced while being hunted by dogs.
Can I therefore be the only person in Britain who is now more anguished at the way these animals are being killed today than I ever was before? And can I be alone in thinking that the act, like so many others passed by this government, has achieved the exact reverse of what it was intended to do? More foxes, more deer and more hares are dying now than ever before and in ways that are very much more cruel…
When it comes to the hare, the figures are grotesque, a slaughter on an unparalleled scale. In the last year of hare coursing - and coursers keep precise statistics because greyhounds are matched in knock-out competition - 180 hares were killed in 1,462 courses on 71 days on 10 purely coursing estates. The next year, on the same estates, 8,000 hares were shot.
On one estate, according to National Coursing Club figures, 330 hares were shot in one day. A fortnight before, when coursing was still legal, just nine hares were killed there. 'Everyone knew what the consequences of the ban would be,' I was told by Charles Blanning, the secretary of the National Coursing Club. 'We told MPs and ministers so at meetings we had prior to the bill being published. But they didn't care. They had a single-issue agenda which was to get rid of hunting and hare coursing and damn the consequences. They're really not interested in animals.'
Before the act, hares lived off the land consuming crops until they were chased, perhaps only once in their lives, by two competing greyhounds for about 20 or so seconds. Statistically, eight out of nine of them survived to resume their lives off the land around them. Farmers claim that five hares can eat as much as one sheep, so there is no longer any point in affording them grazing…
God knows what set of statistics is needed before someone attempts to repeal this appalling act. It has caused the value of foxes, deer and hare to become debased, their status and worth so reduced that deer and hare are now nothing but meat and the fox mere vermin.
Most civilised urban and suburban people probably supported the ban on hunting because in some way they felt it would benefit wild mammals. It is a very difficult concept for them to grasp that the very opposite is true. Perhaps to understand fully the conundrum, we need to anthropomorphise more, not less. For if I were a fox or a deer, I'd be begging for a return to 2004. And if I were a hare, I'd be down on my knees praying for the good old days of coursing where, for 20 seconds of supposed terror, everything was a free lunch.
John Dodd lives in the Hampshire countryside. He does not hunt, shoot or fish and has nothing to do with any countryside organisation.
By John Dodd, The Observer, 18.2.07
HARE BRAINS NEEDED
Coursing is a sport in waiting but there’s no need to stand idle until the next General Election is announced.
Coursing supporters have argued for years that they know more than anyone else about the brown hare. It’s as simple as one two three. If you have coursing on the land, you have plenty of hares.
Now coursers can put their knowledge to good use at the same time as raising the conservation profile of their sport. The current Biodiversity Action Plans invite local involvement, and their target is to double the brown hare population in this country by 2010. Whether such an ambitious target is feasible is debatable, and objective and knowledgeable monitors are essential. You will have a local county-level contact who will be pleased to hear from someone who has practical knowledge and data about hares.
It all started in 1992 with the United Nations’ Convention on Biological Diversity. The UK Biodiversity Partnerships were set up in 2002.
No need to conceal where you are coming from. Coursing will benefit immeasurably from your involvement. If the Hunting Act is repealed, it is likely to be followed by animal welfare legislation for which coursing must have prepared impeccable conservation credentials. We must get ready now.
For all the details of Biodiversity Action Plans go to www.ukbap.org.uk , or have a chat about it with Charles Blanning on 01638 667381.
THE WAY AHEAD
Competitive coursing in England and Wales stands at a crossroads. We all should understand that it may take four years or more before a new government is able to repeal the Hunting Act 2004 so that competitive coursing may resume. When that challenge has been won, we must ensure that we are ready for the restoration of our historic sport.
THE NATIONAL COURSING CLUB
The objective of the National Coursing Club in the period following the passing of the Hunting Act 2004 is to assist at the next General Election in every way possible the return of a government pledged to repeal the Hunting Act. The National Coursing Club will retain its full-time and professional staff so that the NCC continues to work tirelessly for coursing as it has done for the past 150 years.
The National Coursing Club will continue to administer and publish the Greyhound Stud Book.
The Club will continue to be regulated by its published Constitution And Bye-Laws. Its statutory meetings and elections will take place as normal. Only Clubs which were affiliated on June 1st 2005 will be eligible for affiliation, and those clubs must ensure that they continue to observe the requirements of their affiliation. The Standing Committee will accept as replacement Club Representatives only persons who were coursers of repute before June 1st 2005.
THE POLITICAL BATTLE
The National Coursing Club remains in close touch with “Vote OK”, the lobbying organization which enjoyed such dramatic success at the General Election. Vote OK organized teams of pro-coursing and hunting volunteers to assist in unseating anti MPs. These were so successful that anti MPs lost their seats in 29 of the 50 constituencies targeted. We must be prepared to do as much and much more again at bye-elections and the next General Election.
The National Coursing Club is fortunate in that its Chairman, Sally Merison, is an elected member of the Board of the Countryside Alliance. She also attends every meeting of the Council of Hunting Associations which spearheads the Countryside Alliance’s attack on the Hunting Act. Coursing supporters may be confident that their voices will be heard loud and clear.
The showing of Paul Yule’s film, “The Last Waterloo Cup”, was a landmark for coursing. Never before has the sport received such fair and effective coverage on prime time TV; the film being shown at 9.00 pm on a Friday evening and attracting an audience of 1.9 million viewers. Paul Yule is an award-winning film director with a reputation for tackling controversial subjects with total integrity, and his view of coursing will be seen by media experts as honest and unbiased. We need as many people as possible to see this film. Why not buy a copy and send it to your MP with the promise that in a month’s time you will visit his constituency surgery and discuss it with him? You can obtain DVD or video copies of the film from Berwick Universal, 45 Brookfield, London N6 6AT for £19.99 plus £2.50 post and packing.
THE DOGS
Coursing supporters may well feel confused and frustrated by how the Hunting Act affects them. They see packs of fox, stag, and mink hounds continuing to hunt, almost as normal, “within the law.”
Coursing supporters need to understand that the Hunting Act did not deal with coursing and hunting with an even hand. The Long Title of the Hunting Act – what it says on the tin – states that it is an Act “to make provision about hunting wild mammals with dogs; to prohibit hare coursing…” The Act prohibits competitive coursing events. We should all understand, however, that we enjoy the same exemptions under the Act as fox, stag, and mink hunters to hunt hares with greyhounds.
Exempt Hunting With Greyhounds
(Extracts from the Hunting Act are italicized)
Coursing Events
The Hunting Act 2004 prohibits hare coursing events. “A ‘hare coursing event’ is a competition in which dogs are, by the use of live hares, assessed as to skill in hunting hares.”
Although competitive coursing is explicitly illegal under the Act, several relevant forms of hunting are exempt. The Act states no limit to the number of people who may gather together for these exempt activities.
Stalking and flushing out
You may use a maximum of two dogs to stalk or flush out a hare as long as the following conditions are observed; that you do so to prevent the hare from causing damage to crops or growing timber, or to obtain meat for human or animal consumption. You also are obliged to take “reasonable steps” to ensure that “as soon as possible after being found or flushed out the wild mammal is shot dead by a competent person.” The dogs should be kept “under sufficiently close control” to ensure that they do not interfere with the shooting of the hare. Significantly, the Act does not indicate for how long the process of flushing out may continue.
Rabbiting
You may hunt rabbits on your own land or, on other people’s land with permission of the landowner. If you do not own the land, you would be well-advised to carry a letter of permission from the landowner. We all would sympathize with the salutary experience in a “Newsnight” interview of the Labour MP for an urban Scottish constituency who had proposed a Private Member’s Bill to ban coursing. The MP was shown two photographs by Jeremy Paxman, one of a hare and one of a rabbit, and was asked to say which was which. He was unable to do so. If so challenged, particularly if the animal is in motion, will we, or the challenger, be able to do better?
Retrieval Of Hares
Hunting hares which have been shot, on land on which you have permission, is exempt. The Report of the Burns Inquiry noted with concern the rate of wounding in hare shoots. It is inevitable that a certain proportion of hares are wounded in shooting and subsequently might require dispatch by greyhounds. This exemption, of course, may be coupled with that of Stalking and flushing out for those who prefer to wear both a belt and braces.
Falconry
It is exempt hunting, on land where you have permission, to flush a hare from cover to enable a bird of prey to hunt it.
Coursing In Eire
Some coursing owners already have been lucky enough to run their dogs at Irish Coursing Club meetings, The Sevenhouses meeting in Co Kildare in January 2006 ran a 32-runner Seamus Hughes International with sixteen places for Waterloo Cup nominators. Enquiries about Irish coursing may be made to the Irish Coursing Club, Davis Road, Clonmel, Co Tipperary, Eire tel 00 353 5222 611. The ICC has a website at www.sportingpress.ie .
Other Greyhound Sports
Lure racing is an enjoyable way of bringing old friends and dogs together. Successful meetings have been run already in Norfolk, Wiltshire, and Yorkshire, some for mixed breeds. The Yorkshire Greyhound Club has been formed specially for the purpose, and ensures that its meetings are open only to members of a coursing club, and that the greyhounds will run in their stud book names and ownerships. Field trials with greyhounds, assessing their usefulness in the flushing of game for shooting, are another enjoyable way of testing dogs.
LEAGUE AGAINST CRUEL SPORTS
V
WRIGHT
Barnstaple Magistrates Court: 31st July, 1st, 2nd, & 4th August 2006
The private prosecution of the Huntsman of the Exmoor Foxhounds, Tony Wright, may seem a long way from the concerns of coursing people, but the judgment of Mr Justice Farmer raises several issues which coursers might consider carefully when employing the exemptions of the Hunting Act 2004 to hunt hares with greyhounds. These exemptions are explained above.
Mr Farmer conceded in para 13 of his judgment, “It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under Schedule) 1 in respect of hunting to show that he reasonably believed that the hunting was exempt.” He continues in para 14, “The burden is on the defence to prove reasonable belief on the balance of probabilities.”
Mr Farmer turned in para 18 to the Chambers dictionary to define “flushing”, the procedure which the exemptions permit with two dogs in shooting or a field trial: “flush vi to start up like and alarmed bird vt To rouse and cause to start off, to force from concealment (without) n the act of starting; a bird or a flock of birds so started.”
Mr Farmer listed his related concerns as follows in para 23:
“i) The requirement that “as soon as possible” after being found or flushed the wild mammal is shot dead by a competent person, raises 3 issues for the Court
a) How long is “as soon as possible”
b) How many, and how do you deploy competent marksmen
c) Have the steps been reasonable
ii) Each dog used in flushing has to be under sufficiently close control not to prevent or obstruct the ability of the mammal to be shot.”
Mr Farmer, after watching video evidence and listening to the hunt servants, concluded in para 24, that because “as soon as possible” might mean “up to 2 or 3 minutes”…”This in my view goes far beyond any definition of “flushing.” The position must surely be – after the fox is flushed, the hounds should be called off.”
Mr Farmer repeats in para 34 “with approval” the comments of a Scottish judge trying a similar case: “flushing, that activity will require to be accompanied by realistic, and one would expect, effective arrangements for the shooting of the pest species. The use of what might be termed “token guns” or what was described by the Crown as paying lip service to the legislation is not available …as a justification.”
It was on this basis that Mr Farmer found Tony Wright guilty of illegal hunting. He considered that the hounds were not under control as they were often some distance from the huntsman, and that reasonable attempts to shoot the flushed foxes were not made as the sole gun was often a kilometre or more distant from the hounds and huntsman. “I am not satisfied to the required standard, namely the balance of probabilities, that Mr Wright reasonably believed that the hunting was exempt. It was in my view an attempt to use the exemption in a way that it was clearly not designed for…” (para35)
It should be noted that Mr Farmer’s judgment was given in a private prosecution where a case only needs to be proven to “the balance of probabilities.” A public prosecution would require to be proven beyond reasonable doubt. It should also be noted that a judgment in a junior court of this kind may not set a legal precedent, and also that Tony Wright will appeal against the verdict.
We would be complacent, however, if we ignored the questions which the Farmer judgment raises concerning use of the exemptions of the Hunting Act 2004 to “reasonably believe” that our hunting of hares with greyhounds is exempt. A reading of the judgment would require anyone using the exemptions in their defence to look carefully at the issues of 1) whether the dogs may be said to be under control 2) how long after the hare is flushed the dogs remain in pursuit and 3) the steps taken to ensure that the hare is shot. The first two issues also would apply to the Falconry exemption. The exemptions which appear to remain unaffected by the Farmer judgment are those concerning Rabbiting and Retrieval Of Hares which have been shot.
MADNESS, MADNESS – MADNESS”
by Sir Mark Prescott
How many hours did Parliament devote to debating the war in Iraq? The answer is 41 hours. How many have died since that war began? If you believe independent sources 220,000 men, women and children.
How many hours did Parliament devote to debating the war in Afghanistan? The answer is 22 hours. How many human beings have died since that war began? If you believe the same independent sources again, it is in excess of 70,000 men, women and children.
How many hours have Parliament devoted to debating “Hunting with Dogs”? Answer: 700 hours. How many hares died coursing last year (wait for it) exactly 169!
If you told the Man on the Moon that 700 hours of Parliamentary time were devoted to 169 hares and only 63 hours to killing 290,000 human beings, he would scarcely believe you.
If you then described how, after 700 hours of debate and deep consideration, the Mother of all Parliaments, incorporating presumably the finest brains in the Kingdom, had fine tuned and honed a Bill, to such an extent that it had resulted in it being legal to kill a rabbit but illegal to kill a hare, the Man on the Moon would think you were joking.
If you then explained that such an offence would incur a £5,000 fine or 6 months in prison, but that almost no politician, few policemen and certainly not a dog in the world can tell the difference between a hare and a rabbit, the Man on the Moon would surely be convinced he was the victim of an elaborate joke.
Famously a BBC newsreader, some years ago, having introduced without comment footage of a Garda policeman’s dying body, partially covered by a tarpaulin, with blood pumping down the gutter, prefaced the next news item with the words “What you are about to see now, may prove disturbing” and proceeded to show footage of the Waterloo Cup. But what really is disturbing is that probably that newsreader was right to issue a warning, for modern man is so divorced, by supermarket packaging and cellophane, from the realities of nature and animal husbandry that the sight of two dogs pursuing a hare as Nature has decreed for the last 4,000 years probably is distressing.
For modern man is totally ignorant of the fact that the hare is the only mammal in creation with complete vision behind and an 180 degree blind arc in front (and now you know why it always jinks prior to disappearing through a small hole in a hedge!) When pursued it knows exactly what it is doing, for it is perfectly adapted for pursuit, and if fit, healthy and alert it will live (only 1 in 9 hares coursed are killed), but if it is slow, ill or stupid it will die (but never be wounded). This process is called Natural Selection, the survival of the fittest, upon which, as Darwin told us, depends the survival of every species in the world.
However, the hare was not designed by Evolution to evade guns, or cars it cannot see, nor to perceive the dangers of toxic sprays. Yet modern man is happy to tolerate the annual unselective slaughter and wounding of hundreds of thousands of hares by such methods, yet balk and legislate against coursing, a selective means of control, that conserves thousands each year on coursing estates yet kills only 169 animals, and those selectively, as Evolution decrees.
It is agreed by all that a banning Bill will, in total, not result in one hare’s life being saved and, further, in the words of the Game Conservancy investigation into hare numbers, “It is only on hare coursing estates that hare numbers are on the increase against the National trend”. It is an undoubted fact that, should coursing be banned, hundreds of greyhounds from off the tracks and from the Irish coursing fields, who are too cunning or too slow to earn their place will have no second career in the English coursing field. Both the dogs and the hares will all be adversely affected by a ban.
Four independent enquiries in 40 years have found in coursing’s favour; three of the last four Directors of the League Against Cruel Sports have changed their minds on its abolition. Yet modern man persists in attempting to end Britain’s oldest field sport and with it one of our oldest sporting traditions “The Waterloo Cup”.
Ban coursing and thousands of hares currently conserved will annually be shot. Hundreds of dogs will have no future and only 169 hares will be saved.
As the Man on the Moon looks down on this scene of self inflicted destruction, he can only reflect, in those saddest of closing lines to that much loved British film “The Bridge over the River Kwai”, “Madness, madness – madness!”
Sir Mark Prescott, Bt.
19th January, 2005
THE LAST WATERLOO CUP
To order copies of the film, please send £19.99 + £2.50 p&p each, stating whether VHS or DVD
Monday, June 21, 2010
TIPPERARY POLOCROSSE CLUB
Last weekend I paid my first ever visit to a Polocrosse Tournament.....I must admit I am now totally hooked and find myself looking forward to the next one held by Waterford in two weeks time.
Polocrosse is a affordable version on Polo.....and can be described as "hurling on horseback"......its great. And the game is made even better by the friendliness of its competitors
After having trouble all day ive finally managed to post a photoshow onto the web......sadly it wont post onto this site but click the link and youll be directed
http://www.photoshow.com/watch/tH4Ba4hf
Those are just a small % of the photos I have so ask if theres nothing there to interest you
Monday, June 14, 2010
SALTEE ISLAND
On Sunday I took a trip to Wexford to visit the Saltee Islands. This is a Island in the St Georges channel, 5 kilometers off Kilmore Quay in Wexford.
To get there you need to book a place on a boat that runs at weekends......or else organise a group of a dozen people.
The Island is privately owned and permission is given to visitors between the hours of 11.00 and 4.30
Our group waiting for the off, being greeted by the fatest seal ive ever seen
It seems theres a couple of seals that live in the harbour waiting for returning fishing boats
There is nothing on the Island but Birds.....so a visit to the loos before you leave is essential!
Once you get there the place is a wonderland for bird watchers and photographers!
You can make it as hard...or as easy as you like
Get to the first bay and just sit for hours.
Or walk the coast
Either way you'll enjoy
Razorbills and Guillemot are everywhere
And so are every ones favourite.....Puffins
And these little chaps seem to love to pose
Dungarvan Camera Club were having a day out when I was there
This fella was a star......getting into every pose possible for us
In a short space of time we were treated to every pose and angle
I wonder if I should have tipped him?
While I was sat there this cheeky fella landed beside me and them moved to
within 5 foot from me.....then turned his back.....That's confidence!
on the way to the Gannet Colony you leave the coastline for a sort time but keep your eyes open and you'll see some Larks and some Oystercatchers
This Oystercatcher was defending a nest
The Great Black-backed Gull is the largest of all the Gulls
Kittiwakes were scattered everywhere, nesting
More Guillemots and Razorbills
The Guillemot's lay a single egg and its on the ledges of the cliffs.....
But the Razorbills hid there nests under slabs of rocks
Razorbills
you can see this lady has her chick well protected
Theres more Puffin to be seen later in the day after they have spent the day out at sea
As you get near to the Gannets, theres a small Cormorant Colony
a juvenile Cormorant
After the Cormorants you need to climb a steep hill
This is when you regret taking that extra camera and lens
You can look back and see , not only the tail end of the Island but also
Little Saltee Island
and of course everywhere theres these creatures
These are female..you can tell by the longer hair....although this is not always a reliable guide
In between the rocks you'll find some Fulmars nesting
A Fulmar in Flight
near the Gannets we started to see more Shags......mostly they were nesting
a easy way to tell the difference is by the crest that the Shag has,
a cormorant has none
Older Chicks
Strangely while many of these seabirds only have single chicks
The Shag will sometimes lay as many as 7/8 eggs.....often rearing 2/4
If you have missed placed any twine, netting or fishing line the chances are its on Saltee Island being
used as nesting material
As you come over the hill you will see the Gannet Colony ahead
Its truly splendid.....a place to sit and watch.....and as a fair wind blows over the rock
Its a amazing sight to see dozens of gannets constantly hovering on the wind
Its a great place to practice your Bird In Flight photography
The wind even manages to slow the gulls down
You can't help but love the Gannets
Theres such interaction between them
and big trouble for anyone landing in the wrong house
a single chick will fledge after 53 days
it will be another 5/6 years before it breeds its self
theres much preening going on
any plenty of status placed on the nesting material
You can see how the head is shaped to dive into the sea at high speed
Wall to Wall Gannets
A cormorant heading out to sea
With so much happening on the rocks and in the air , you often forget to look below and into the sea
here two Razorbills were having a fight
Only for a gull to drop on them and beat them both up
THE SEABIRD YEAR
The auks (Guillemots, Razorbills & Puffins) have a very short breeding season - generally from late April to mid-August, although birds can visit breeding colonies for short periods any time from January. By August, most of the breeding birds will be back out at sea.
May
At South Stack, the first eggs are usually laid in the first week of May. The cliff ledges will be full of birds from now on with many a conflict as the birds seek to maintain their tiny personal spaces.
June
Chicks start to hatch from the beginning of June. The adults brood them closely to start with, so the chicks are hard to see. As the chicks grow, they become slightly easier to see -they look like miniature, fluffey versions of the adults. This is the busiest time of year at the colony. The adults need to bring in a constant supply of fish to feed the young.
July
By the middle of the month, some of the chicks will be almost two-thirds adult size - and almost ready to leave the cliffs. When they do, they won't return until the following year.
August
The numbers of seabirds on the cliffs drops off sharply now as chicks are called down to the sea by their parents. The chicks may have to jump as much as 150 metres to reach the safety of the sea. Most of them do this on still, dark nights, away from prying eyes of predators.
Once the chicks have reached the sea, the whole family will paddle out to sea. Many head from South Stack to the good feeding grounds in the west of the Irish Sea. During this time the adults will undergo their annual feather moult. For up to three weeks, they will be flightless as their new feathers grow.
August-December
The auks disperse through the Irish Sea. Some guillemots get as far south as the Bay of Biscay.
December-April
A general return to waters nearer breeding sites takes place. Sometimes whole colonies appear back on the breeding cliffs during calm periods for a day or two at a time from January onwards
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