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		Support for coursing at RSPCA AGM Tuesday 1 July 2003 RSPCA members at their AGM at the National Motorcycle Museum at Solihull on June 28th were astonished - and many shocked - to hear a Euro-MP speak up for coursing. The meeting had debated several motions, including one on care of racing greyhounds, when East Midlands Conservative MEP Roger Helmer, an RSPCA member, spoke in a debate on battery cages for laying hens. He called for care to ensure that higher standards of animal welfare in the UK should not leave British farmers facing a flood of cheap imports from countries with lower welfare standards. But at the end of his speech, he referred to the previous greyhound debate, and to Mrs. Graham who had seconded the motion. Remarking that he was a member of the Retired Greyhound Trust, and that he owned a rescue greyhound, he added: "Mrs. Graham is quite right that greyhounds make excellent pets. She is also right that they were originally bred for hunting. That is whey I regularly attend the Waterloo Cup (the nation's premier hare coursing event), to see greyhounds doing what they were bred to do." His remarks were greeted with howls of abuse, but also with cheering from a significant minority of the audience. Commenting after the meeting, Helmer said "I am sick to death of the failure of the RSPCA to recognising that most rabbits and hares die by predation, that hunting with hounds goes with the grain of nature, and that landowners on coursing estates do marvellous conservation work for the brown hare. The RSPCA should concentrate on its core business of animal welfare, which it does well, and stop wasting its money on tendentious political campaigns".