Hare Hunting – Willdife Matters Investigates is in the above podcast.
In this blog Wildlife Matters Investigates Hare Coursing and Exposes the vile tricks the Hare Hunters, commonly known as Coursers and Beagling use to kill wild hare.
Brown Hare
The Brown or European hare is one of the largest hare species well adapted to living in open countryside. Hare lives entirely above ground, with females nesting in scrapes and the leverets active immediately after birth.
The Brown hare is not native to the UK but has naturalised here for many centuries. Whilst not endangered in Britain, Hare populations have been in general decline for many years, primarily due to the changes in farming practices of the last few decades.
Hare does not hibernate or store appreciable amounts of fat in their bodies, so they need a constant food supply throughout the year. This can only be provided by landscapes rich in biodiversity. Farmland in the past had a diversity of grass and herb species maturing in succession throughout the year. Hare actually prefers to eat wild grasses and herbs, with grasses predominating in the winter and herbs in the summer. The ‘mono-culture’ fields of today’s modern farm mean that hare have to travel ever further to find food and this, and the constant shooting by farmers, who see hare as pests that damage crops have seen local extinctions of Brown hare, particularly in the Southwest of England.
Hare Beagling and Coursing
Traditionally, hares have been hunted by two distinct methods; Beagling where scent hounds are used to flush and chase the hare with the hunters following on foot. The other variation is Harriers, where the faster hounds are usually followed by hunters on horses. The third method of Coursing is distinctly different as it uses sighthounds that chase the hare. This will be covered in a future blog.
Beagle hounds were bred, not for the speed but for the stamina, as that guaranteed the lengthy chase the hunters sought. Whilst Harrier hounds were preferred by hunters that pursued on horseback. These are often Fox hunters looking for additional animals to inflict pain, suffering, and death on.
No stop in the killing even for Pregnant Hare or Leverets
The hare hunting season in Britain ran from September or October (depending on the type of pack used) until March. This period encompasses the primary hare breeding season. In early spring, it is not uncommon for hunters to kill pregnant hares the leverets, or Baby Hare. Whilst hare hunters don’t hunt leverets in the same way fox hunters deliberately pursue fox cubs, known as “cub hunting”, as their prelude to the fox hunting season, there are numerous accounts of hunters training the hounds on the young hares.
In one graphic account by the Eton College Hunt, the Master claimed: “The best run the Beagles had during his Mastership was in the region of Dorney, where they ran a hare for an hour and five minutes, covering more than six miles. In the end, she burst her heart just in front of hounds.”
Just like fox hunters (in fact, many are the same people), hare hunters know a few tricks to enhance their ‘fun’ at the expense of the hare.
In the run-up to the Hunting Act, Hunt Sab groups noticed the ‘bagging of hare’ to be released in front of the hound packs – just like the bagged fox used by fox hunts – although the hare was boxed, rather than bagged.
Hare was commonly netted – trapped in long nets, spread across their run areas before being transported around the country in small wooden crates to be released for hunting. It’s hard to describe the suffering of the hare involved in this cruel practice or the hunter’s complete disregard for spreading disease between distinct hare populations across the country.
Hare Coursing is Illegal in England
Today, 59 beagle packs and 19 harrier packs are registered in the UK, and, despite claims of Beagle packs ‘trail hunting’, this has never been recorded by hunts or Sabs. Once challenged, most hunts will claim to be chasing rabbits, which is equally cruel but easily disproved as Rabbits act entirely differently from hares. Rabbits run for the sanctuary of their burrow when disturbed, as opposed to the hare, which stays above ground despite the danger. As Rabbits don’t run any distance they have never been of interest to those who hunt packs of hounds.
Some of these “festivals” continued after the introduction of the hunting act, as the Hunters claimed it was a ‘tradition’ and ‘their right as ‘country folk’, both of these excuses have been used to support the bloodthirsty fox hunts and always treated with the contempt they deserve by people who care about wildlife, wherever they live. True Country folk, live in their environment and local communities and do not deliberately hunt wildlife for pleasure or sport.
Hare Coursing Festivals
The hare hunters were so brazen that they held week-long “festivals” where hunt packs from all over the country gather to hunt a relatively small area, such as Alston (Cumbria) or Severn Vale, for a period of one or two weeks, often with two packs of hounds hunting each day. The impact on the local hare population was devastating and the use of the ‘boxed hare’ was barely disguised.
One of the oddities of our legal system here in the UK is that it is illegal to hunt the hare on a Sunday; a law that was meant to encourage church attendance. The Brown hare is the only species in Britain that does not have a close season for shooting. In fact, organised shoots, in East Anglia during February and March can account for up to 40% of the entire national brown hare population, with orphaned leverets left to die of starvation. Hare does have a remarkable ability to recover from such slaughter, but the welfare implication on individual Hare is as obvious as it is despicably pointless.
Better Legal Protection for Hares
It is clear the Brown hare needs legal protection from the relentless slaughter of the shooting industry. Brown hare are not agricultural pests, they are Beautiful sentient animals who are now a part of the natural biodiversity of the UK.
Further Reading
Hare Hunting by Protect the Wild
Hare Hunting and Coursing by League Against Cruel Sports
Types of Illegal Hunting by Metropoitan Police
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