Complete And Utter Hunts…?

Killers on the loose!

hatever about the eternal Rambo vs Bambi debate, it would appear our Wicklow Hills are playing host to some very bloodthirsty tourists.

Bloodthirsty tourists who want to save the rest of us from wild and overly-woolly sheep.

What next, kittens…?

A report in The Irish Farmers Journal has shone a light on what would appear to be package sheep shooting tours here in Wicklow, for a fee of as much as €1,000 per animal.

For tourists to come to Ireland. And shoot sheep. Pretty much the most docile creature out there. On both counts.

Glacial Valley Hunting’s website

There are plenty of companies around the country offering the stalking and shooting of deer legally under licence – and Wicklow’s Glacial Valley Hunting is undoubtedly one of the most popular. Run by a J. Nolan (sometimes Jim, sometimes James, sometimes Jamie, depending on who’s asking) and specialising in ‘free range hunting in the heart of the Wicklow Mountains in the beautiful Glenmalure Valley‘, over on the Book Your Hunt website, James is offering an Irish Hybrid Goat Hunt at $3,275 for 5 days, 1 hunter (with wild goat included).

This time, the package comes with ‘25,000 acres’ of that free range hunting on a ‘privately owned mountain in the heart of the Wicklow National Forest‘, with the company boasting ‘access to a healthy amount of animals‘, being the ‘sole owners of the hunting rights in the entire area‘. On their hitlist wishlist for visitors are ‘Japanese Sika, Red Deer, Hybrids, Feral Goat and Foxes‘.

But the question remains (beyond why these hardy hunters, men and women, always have moustaches), just who are the brave souls offering packages to help save us from those woolly carnivores? The report in The Irish Farmers Journal points out that a commercial business was observed publicly advertising the opportunity to shoot sheep ‘held on a privately owned and leased property at a well-known location in Co Wicklow’, with its website offering the opportunity to shoot sheep all year round.

Because you never know when they might suddenly attack.

The long-running weekly newspaper approached the National Parks and Wildlife Service about this guided shooting of sheep and got the reply, ‘NPWS licensing relates to wild animals that have a protected status under legislation. Neither feral goats nor sheep would fall into this category‘.

The Journal also pointed out that the sheep featured on the website appeared to have originated from domestic stock rather than being wild. ‘It is not clear,’ they stated, ‘under what circumstances these sheep originate, where they were bred and when, and how frequently the are released on the property‘. They have also sought clarity from the Department of Agriculture as to whether ‘welfare, food chain, disease control and flock ownership criteria apply to the sheep used in this hunting activity‘.

A later report by the same journalist, Barry Murphy, highlighted a US-based, Kildare-linked hunting tourism company advertising the opportunity to stalk and shoot sheep in Ireland, with stands at US hunting trade fairs across the country.

We sent messages to Glacial Valley Hunting and Glenmalure Lodge to try and find out more about this report, but got no reply. We did get a reply from local TD Jennifer Whitmore though.  “The reports in the media are concerning and I will be contacting the Department of Agriculture about this to ascertain exactly what is permitted in instances like this and how it is regulated.

“I would have concerns from an animal welfare and health and safety perspective, and I will follow up accordingly.”