Catherine Drea: Do any of them care? - Waterford TDs vote in support of hare coursing

There’s a big difference between rage and care. So just in case you are wondering, I’m someone who cares. I know there are bigger issues, but I will focus today on my sense of bewilderment as to how our four TDs managed to fully agree for once and that it had to be an issue that is close to my heart.

Yes, the four of them, Mary Butler, Fianna Fáil, John Cummins, Fine Gael, David Cullinane and Conor McGuinness, Sinn Féin, all voted for our country to continue to support hare coursing. 

In case you don’t know, hare coursing is a brutal activity that sees our native Irish Hare, a protected species, used as live bait for the greyhound industry.

In a week that saw the bravest and biggest hearted men of Waterford being given a state apology for years of abuse and indifference by the authorities, I again thought that our culture of care in Ireland, of both children and nature, is still sadly lacking.

Who of our representatives cares a fig about nature, I wonder? Which of them speaks for care of our environment, our native wildlife or indeed the future of our planet? Do they not understand that many of us are working hard to protect and preserve what is left of nature in this country? 

Many of us who are quietly going about our daily care of both the human and other species are without a champion from Waterford in the Dáil.

If any one of you has a care for nature and wishes to lead on this important cornerstone of our future, please let me know!

Instead, I turn to others. Jen Whitmore TD (Social Democrat) for Wicklow is one of the only people who talks about the fact that about 52% of Irish waters remain in good ecological health. Over 500 were classified as pristine in the 1980s, but that number has collapsed to just 20! She voices many of the concerns of ordinary people, like myself, who care about this and other environmental issues.

With two previous Presidents, Mary Robinson and Micheal D., supporting the ban on hare coursing for many years and our current President also supporting a ban, except for a very small number of supporters, the Dáil totally ignored the consensus amongst the rest of us and supported the greyhound industry instead.

I’m not going to go into the defence of hare coursing as outlined in some of the frankly bonkers speeches made in the Dáil last week. Nor am I going to get involved with arguments about how many or how often people enjoy these kinds of events. I have a much more personal and caring relationship to these beautiful animals and instead I want to explain to you why this voting alliance of our four representatives upset me so much.

Not too many people have witnessed at close range the lives of hares in the wild. For 25 years, generations of hares have bred and lived in our couple of wild acres here. So, my up close and personal relationship to these magical animals has made me an advocate for their survival. Then to discover that although the majority of our citizens do not support using hares as live bait, our politicians have completely ignored this growing care and concern.

The Irish Hare is a unique species only found here in Ireland. It is reckoned that from fossils and carbon dating these animals have lived here since the end of the Ice Age, about 13,000 years ago. No wonder then that the hare has always been considered a mythical and a magical animal by Irish people.

In our folklore the hare was considered to be a witch or a goddess in disguise. In one famous legend, the mythical warrior Oisín (son of Fionn mac Cumhaill) was out hunting and wounded a hare. He followed the injured creature into a dark chamber, only to find it had transformed into a beautiful princess.

Our ancestors here in this beautiful county have left us a heritage of magnificent landscape, coastline and mountains. While my generation has seen the sad decline of wild animals and plants, there is still so much to be saved and cared for. I do my bit and have created a small haven for wildlife, in particular hares, and every year they breed here.

Their young are left in a safe place above ground. They don’t use burrows like rabbits. For a short few weeks, the mother returns usually at night to feed the young leveret. In time she moves on and the young hare grows up here, nibbling at shoots and finding its place in the world.

Somehow, they survive and adults return year on year. Every year I think this will be their last, and this year is no different. Like every other wild creature, their future is dependent on protection. Which is why the freedom the State has given to trap and use hares for dogs to chase is the exact opposite of what being a protected species should mean.

Do we care? I think more and more of us care very deeply. The more we lose and see our heritage threatened, the more we will care. I hope that my little granddaughter will have the opportunity to have the same reaction next year when a hare comes and sits outside the kitchen window.

“Oh, look, a bunny!”