Elavon/Realex urged to stop facilitating sale of coursing tickets
10 January 2014

The Irish Council Against Blood Sports is calling on online payment companies, Elavon and Realex, to show compassion for Irish hares and stop facilitating the sale of tickets to an animal cruelty event.

"We are surprised and disappointed to note that you are making the online sale of tickets to a hare coursing event possible by providing online payment services to the Irish Coursing Club," we stated in our appeal.

We told the companies that coursing is one of Ireland's worst forms of cruelty and that hares violently netted from the wild are forced to run for their lives in front of greyhounds.

"This is a bloodsport which a majority of Irish people are opposed to and which is illegal in most countries including England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the United States," we pointed out.

We also provided them with information about the victims of coursing and highlighted that painful injuries suffered by hares include broken bones and dislocated hips.

 ACTION ALERT 

Please join us in urging Elavon and Realex to show compassion for the hares and stop providing online merchant services to coursers.

Elavon Financial Services
Block E, Cherrywood Science & Technology Park
Loughlinstown, Co. Dublin

Elavon Financial Services, Inc.
Two Concourse Parkway,
Suite 800, Atlanta GA 30328 USA

Email: Simon.Haslam@elavon.com,sales@elavon.com,custsvc@elavon.com,queries@elavon.com,imerchantconnect@elavon.com

Realex Payments
The Observatory
7-11 Sir John Rogerson's Quay
Dublin 2

Email: sales@realexpayments.com,accounts@realexpayments.com,feedback@realexpayments.com
Tweet to @realexpayments
Leave a comment on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/realexpayments

Tel (London): +44 (0) 20 3178 5370
Tel (Dublin): +353 (0) 1 702 2000

A hare is hit by a greyhound at the coursing meeting in Clonmel. Elavon and Realex are facilitating the sale of tickets to this cruelty festival.

Sign anti-coursing petitions
Minister Coveney: Save hares from cruel coursing
Petition to Ban horrific Hare Coursing Cruelty in Ireland
Stop sponsoring hare coursing in Ireland
Find more petitions on our Petitions Page

Urgently contact An Taoiseach Enda Kenny and An Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore. Ask them to show compassion for wildlife and introduce an immediate ban on hare coursing and all bloodsports.

An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny
Department of the Taoiseach,
Telephone: 01-6194020

An Tanaiste, Eamon Gilmore
Office of the Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade,
Tel: 01 6183566 (Dail) or 01 408 2000 (Iveagh House)

Email Both: eamon.gilmore@oireachtas.ie;taoiseach@taoiseach.gov.ie

Ask Minister Deenihan and the National Parks and Wildlife Service to respect the wishes of the majority who want hare coursing banned and withdraw the coursing licence.

Jimmy Deenihan, TD
Minister for Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht Affairs
Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht
23 Kildare Street
Dublin 2

Email: jimmy.deenihan@oireachtas.ie
cc: taoiseach@taoiseach.gov.ie,nature.conservation@ahg.gov.ie
Tel: (01) 631 3804
Fax: (01) 661 1201

Constituency Details
18A The Square, Listowel, Co Kerry
Telephone: 068-57446
Fax: 068-57805

Urge Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney to remove exemptions for coursing from the Animal Health and Welfare Bill.

Minister Simon Coveney
Department of Agriculture
Agriculture House,
Kildare Street, Dublin 2.
Email: minister@agriculture.gov.ie
Tel: 01-607 2884 or LoCall 1890-200510.
Fax: 01-661 1013.

Contact all your local TDs now. Demand that they urgently push for bans on coursing and foxhunting.

Find out their contact details
Please also arrange a meeting with your TDs at their local clinics.

Videos: Ireland's hare coursing cruelty

A hare is hit into the ground at the JP McManus-sponsored coursing meeting at Limerick Racecourse. February 2013

The victims of coursing

All hares used in coursing are victims and they all suffer the fear and stress of being violently snatched from their habitats, thrown into crates, transported to coursing compounds and kept in captivity for months. Among the hare injuries and deaths recorded are:

• A hare "squealing in distress" after being caught by a muzzled dog
• A hare suffering with "a badly broken hind leg"
• A hare "carrying a hind leg"
• A hare with "a damaged hind toe"
• A coursed hare with a "badly broken hind leg [which] seemed to be in great distress"
• A hare in agony in a coursing enclosure with its leg "almost completely broken off".
• A hare destroyed by a vet after it was found suffering with a dislocated hip
• A hare that died "from knocks sustained during coursing"
• A hare released back into the wild with a "damaged leg" that "could be broken"
• A hare found dead in a coursing compound after succumbing to pneumonia.
• A vet treated three hares for "minor abrasions" and "witnessed three other hares that appeared to die after coursing without any outward signs of injury. One of these was sent to the local regional veterinary laboratory. Post-mortem findings included internal adhesions, suggestive of an old condition."
• Seven hares badly hit by greyhounds, with three dying as a result of the injuries.
• An injured hare with "marks on its back and bare areas".
• Two hares found dead in a coursing club paddock. An autopsy showed that one died from well established pneumonia while the other died from so-called "natural causes". Another died "during transportation from Loughrea to Westport."
• 13 hares hit by dogs and 1 put down because of injuries and 3 died from injuries. Veterinary opinion was that they died "from knocks sustained during coursing the previous day."

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