Roy on TV about illegal hunting

Kilcullen's Roy Thompson was among the participants on tonight's Ear to the Ground on RTE TV, speaking about the problem of illegal hunting in Ireland, writes Brian Byrne. Roy is a Conservation Ranger.

The programme explored how the growing problem is affecting wildlife from small birds through hares and other small animals to deer, with the latter fetching €500 per carcass on the black food market.

One farmer reported how he had made a group of people he believed were on his land hunting hares leave his property, but that a day or two later the hares on his land were gone, leaving him to the conclusion that the hunters had come back once they 'knew the lie of the land'.

The programme also spent an evening with a special Garda group carrying out night roadside checks in the Wicklow Mountains, very aware that those they were looking for were armed.

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