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CALLS ARE BEING made to ban live hare coursing in Ireland after it was announced yesterday that wild animals are to be banned in circuses.
Yesterday, Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed signed regulations that will ban the use of wild animals in circuses. The measures will come into effect on 1 January 2018.
The Campaign for the Abolition of Cruel Sports (CACS) has said that it is taken aback at the “breathtaking hypocrisy” of the government’s move against circuses while allowing hare coursing to continue.
“If anything, coursing is worse than circuses. That hares are terrorised for the amusement of gamblers and thrill seekers,” John Fitzgerald from CACS said.
It is scandalous that these defenseless creatures should be in the possession of any coursing club.
“It’s bad enough that healthy hares are forced to run the gauntlet of a contrived chase in a wired enclosure, and that a percentage of them every year succumb to injury resulting in death when they are mauled, pinned down, or forcibly struck by dogs,” Fitzgerald said.
That is a the public farce of hare coursing, which stands condemned as a perversion of true sport.
In 2015, Sinn Féin representatives in North Kerry came in for criticism after being accused of promoting animal cruelty after wishing a hare coursing group “the best of luck”.
The ad had been taken out in a programme for an event which featured the Listowel coursing club.
CACS has criticised the government for last year voting against the abolition of hare coursing in Ireland.
“They must accept a measure of responsibility for the plight of our iconic Irish hare, a mammal that survived the last Ice Age only to serve a live bait in this so-called sport,” Fitzgerald said.
Circus ban
Announcing the circus ban yesterday, Creed said that “the use of wild animals for entertainment purposes in circuses can no longer be permitted”.
“This is a progressive move, reflective of our commitment to animal welfare,” he said.
While circus owners and operators may have their regrets about this move, Creed said that he appreciated their concern and care for the animals that have been part of their lives.
However, he said the ability of a travelling circus to provide fully for all the needs of animals such as camels or tigers is no longer a tenable position.
“While the retirement of the small numbers of wild animals in circuses might seem like a loss, I am confident that this move will do more to secure the future of the circus community,” Creed said.
The Circuses (Prohibition on Use of Wild Animals) Regulations 2017 are made under the Animal and Welfare Act 2013.
It’s possibly someone showing off their capability before putting it up for auction. Like the Christmas Sony hack a couple of years ago
Here’s why this wasn’t a nation state actor. Let’s take a look at an excerpt from the log of the Firewall on my Home Router: (IP’s truncated)
Oct 22 16:26:30: [Minor] Port Scan is detected (186.244.206.xx:15314->109.255.xx.yy:23 TCP) from module Firewall
Oct 22 16:28:07: [Minor] Port Scan is detected (83.21.5.xx:63112->109.255.xx.yy:9999 TCP) from module Firewall
Oct 22 16:28:04: [Minor] Port Scan is detected (93.171.199.xx:11943->109.255.xx.yy:23 TCP) from module Firewall
My router (and yours) is scanned thousands of times a day, looking for open ports through which they can connect to webcams, home alarm systems etc etc. Not that they want to spy on you, or steal your stuff. That’s actually quite rare. Instead they will simply turn your devices into internet weapons that will send crafted queries designed to spam other machines, anywhere else on the Net.
It’s not the Russians doing this. It’s gangs of basement dwellers and malcontents. Much ado about nothing in terms of world politics. Be more worried about your shiny new Thermostat.
State sponsored hackers are “sitting in the basement” type hackers who are just employed, plus there’s a lot more of them, what are they on about? They’re really pushing this Russia thing! There’s a few videos of Putin talking to international journalists asking them to actually do their job and report on what’s happening because the U.S. Media are out of control. It’s a sad state of affairs when you get to this stage.
@Linda: Well yes Linda, but with the additional training, education and skill-set that comes with that. They don’t spend their lives scanning Virgin media IP blocks trying to hack home devices. They don’t care about DYN (the company hit yesterday) or their customers, by and large, or perform low grade nuisance attacks in general.
Instead they are busy doing the same thing to IP blocks belonging to infrastructure and governments.
Which is why I think we agree that this was unlikely to be nation state and even if it was Russia are no more likely to be guilty than China, Iran or North Korea if it was.
We agree. I think it’s least likely to be Russia anyway, if they really thought it was them they wouldn’t say it. I mean why this story and not the one where Putin is saying he doesn’t want to get into a war with the U.S but they have to stop moving their nuclear stuff over toward him? If there’s even a chance that the U.S. is trying to start a war, shouldn’t we know this before we worry about who fiddled with Twitter? They’ve done it before and they’re at it again.
This has F-Society written all over it…
I found the discrimination against me as a kid was very prominent, as one of the few vegetarian in school, I really understood how it felt to be frowned upon for being different. Other students would shout ‘winner winner, chicken dinner’ at me when they quite clearly knew I did not eat the low grade chicken there degenerate mum’s would make them scoff on a daily basis.
@Jaque H Doyle, winner winner, chicken dinner. How do you like your steak cooked ?
Someone putin on a show of power in support of his business friend, Trump?
So the US are saying that, at the moment, the Russians are the evil superior cyber power? It could be anyone really. Their tech companies have been farming out manufacturing, data handling and coding etc to the Far East and third world for years chasing the bottom line, so it shouldn’t surprise them if they’re open to both fair and unfair competition, underground practices and even attacks from anywhere in the world. Silicon Valley has the startup and investment gig but the technology is inherently wide open to bad intentioned talent everywhere.
Jasus I hope they don’t DOS attack Eircode… Pizza consumption would grind to a halt!!!
TBH these people bore me. If this is what makes you happy in life you really need to get a life it’s so much more fun!
Us testing the internet kill switch , before martial law is declared all communications will be severed !
Can’t be Anonymous, most of their hacker’s are actually in prison or simply not good enough, so that leaves the Chinese or the Russian’s? My money’s on the commies…
Eh they’re both commies…
have your say