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Guest blood as ink

the post just makes me so happy...i have no clue why it just does.this post should just remain at the top.so cute.

 

if i were a 3 armed alien i'd give this post 3 thumbs up. :crazy:

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I would like to make sure this thread never makes it to the 4th page ever again.

 

This is the best thread since the inception of the 12oz forum, hands down.

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Britain's illegal blood sport boom

 

Barbarism in the countryside

 

Antony Barnett, public affairs editor

Sunday December 16, 2001

The Observer

 

They meet every Sunday in gangs of up to 40, assembling at secret rural locations across Britain. Some of the men are armed with shotguns; some wear balaclavas. Many drive offroad vehicles and have travelled hundreds of miles for the illegal meet, which has been arranged over mobile phones. Their dogs, mostly lurchers, bark.

This is illegal hare coursing, a craze that is being dubbed 'the new dog fighting'. More than a dozen such events have taken place recently. The aim is simple: to bet on how many hares your dog can kill.

 

Once on a farm, the gang release their dogs, which race through crops or livestock searching for their prey, the brown hare. If a hare is spotted, it is normally only a few seconds before it is caught and killed. Some of the men cheer. If it is their dog that has killed the hare, they stand to make a lot of money.

 

Tomorrow, legal hare coursing and fox hunting resume after a 10-month ban on blood sports since the outbreak of foot and mouth disease.

 

But illegal coursing is still big business. Up to £20,000 can change hands in one day. The best dogs can win their owners more than £40,000.

 

The fad presents problems for farmers, many of whom are still recovering from the effects of foot and mouth. The gangs trash crops, harm livestock and damage property. They also try to intimidate farmers who take action against them.

 

In the past few months, meetings have occurred in Sussex, Oxfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Essex, Humberside and East Anglia. In Kent, more than 25 farms have reported damage from coursing. One farmer in Kent said: 'I was threatened and warned that they knew which car my wife drove. Other farmers who have told police have found their barns alight. They drove across my fields, ruining my crops and scaring my livestock.'

 

Hare coursing even attracts criticism from some who used to be involved in it. John Byrne said: 'I used to go out with a couple of mates to do some illegal coursing - we called it poaching with dogs. But now it's got bigger and better organised. There's a lot of money involved betting on which dog can kill the most hares. Legal coursing has rules, but this is terrible - the hares have no chance.'

 

Robert Jackson, MP for Wantage in Oxfordshire, where there have been many problems with illegal hare coursing, has raised the issue in the Commons. He said: 'For landowners it is a problem and farmers have been threatened. Hare coursing with trespass has become a favourite weekend occupation of substantial numbers of rough urban dwellers, who will drive hundreds of miles for a day's "sport". The behaviour of such people towards farmers, the police and anybody who might get in their way is distinctly intimidatory.'

 

Douglas Batchelor, chief executive of the League Against Cruel Sports, said: 'All hare coursing is cruel and unnecessary, but the illegal meets are the most worrying. These people are abusing, tormenting and killing hares for the fun of it and this depravity should have no place in the Britain of 2001.'

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