My Bad Hare Days and Hoppy times as an anti-coursing campaigner!

[HareDays]

Hello everyone on this attractive forum. It's good to be among like-minded people, especially after more than three decades of often literally hair-raising campaign work on behalf of our furry friends...in my case both hares AND rabbits of the wild variety.

I have been campaigning for all that time for the protection of these gentle creatures from cruelty...but especially from the so-called "sport" of hare coursing here in Ireland, in which rabbits as well as hares are used by those who think of setting greyhounds after these animals as fun and entertainment.

Hare coursing, which is now thankfully outlawed in Britain (and in Australia also) continues in Ireland. It basically involves capturing wild hares in the countryside and then forcing them to run from pairs of greyhounds...the aim being to see which greyhound will perform best in these races.

These races are held in large wired enclosures. Each hare is released from a little box at one end of the enclosure, and two competing dogs unleashed to pursue it. At the opposite end of the enclosure is an escape hatch. If the hare reaches this escape hatch before the dogs catch up with it, the animal has outwitted them...and survives to run again. But many hares fail to reach the escape and get mauled, injured or killed.

Since 1993, coursing greyhounds in Ireland have been muzzled...a change introduced in response to years of campaigning by animal protection people, including myself....muzzling means the hares cannot now be ripped apart as previously, but the greyhounds still kill or injure them. The hare is a brittle-boned creature and does not recover from injuries sustained.

Rabbits are used in pre-coursing training sessions for greyhounds, when the unfortunate creatures serve as live targets to make the dogs more aggressive and "rearing to go".

Campaigners on any issue will probably understand me when I tell you that taking up a cause like that of the hare and the rabbit can really take a toll on one's life. It certainly turned my life upsidedown. I was living and working a district where hare coursing fans were pretty powerful, and had plenty friends in high places...a situation campaigners in Britain probably experienced too I imagine down through the years.

Anyway, my employers were approached by coursing officials and urged to dismiss me from my job unless I ceased writing to the newspapers denouncing hare coursing. Under pressure, my employers asked me to quit my job.

The unfair dismissal followed months of severe bullying in the workplace, something other anti-coursing campaigners experienced also.

Other even more sinister challenges lay ahead, and all of them had to be faced and overcome. Whilst meeting much hostility from those who don't particularly care about the welfare of hares or rabbits (or enjoy misusing them) I also made lifelong friends "on the campaign trail".

I have written about my wildlife protection campaigning in a book called
Bad Hare Days Not just about the dark days, but also of the many happy times and the little triumphs along the way. Even the blackest clouds can sometimes have that silver lining! I am getting emails from around the world from campaigners who read the book and have trod the same rocky road (of picketing, lobbying, leafleting, etc) that hopefully leads to success.

I would encourage anyone campaigning for wildlife protection not to lose heart, and to remember that there are many others out there who have faced similar ups and downs...and if you feel any twinges of doubt as to whether it's all worth it, just look into the innocent eyes of the rabbit nearest to you. I know some will say I'm just being "emotional". So what? I say it's worth it.

I hope you're all having hoppy days. I look forward to when my own Bad Hare Days will be over and I can rejoice at the news that Ireland's hares and rabbits are at last protected from...let's face it...from people who ought to know better!
-John Fitzgerald