Calls to grant the brown hare a close season have been made for some years and, on the face of it, sound reasonable.
Close seasons already exist in some European countries and Scotland has recently introduced the Wildlife and Natural Environment (Scotland) Act 2011, prohibiting the intentional or reckless killing, injuring or taking of brown hares between 1st February and 30th September. Recently, calls for the rest of the UK to follow suit have become louder. Some groups have claimed that the brown hare is in decline and the argument that certain animals, especially one that is included in the UK’s Biodiversity Action Plan, should be allowed to breed in peace appears very strong.
However, there is one central question that must be answered and that is “Would a close season work?” A glib response would suggest that it must, but that ignores a more complex situation surrounding the brown hare, so a few matters are worth examining.
One point on which everyone is agreed is that brown hare numbers have declined dramatically since the middle of the 1800s. This has much to do with changes in farming practices, which have seen losses in small, mixed farms to which hares are attracted, being replaced by large fields with highly mechanised machinery. Not using burrows, nursing hares leave their young leverets above ground for long periods and they simply get chewed up by these mechanical monsters. Pesticides and more intensively farmed crops are detrimental to the hare, as are predators. In areas in which gamekeepers operate in higher numbers, such as the East of England, predators are curbed and this prevents many leverets from being taken, but as the number of gamekeepers nationally has dropped dramatically since the First World War, this has also had an effect on hare populations.
Another problem is the fact that he brown hare is not evenly distributed throughout England and Wales. In the West, populations are often scarce, if not non-existent, whereas in certain areas in the East the brown hare is regarded as a pest, its numbers being so high. That makes a general rule difficult.
Poaching also has an effect on hares, the favourite quarry of illegal gangs who enter private land for either gambling or sporting purposes. (The term ‘illegal coursing’ is as misleading as saying ‘illegal shooters’ if a weapon is involved. They are poachers, regardless of the tools of their trade, and should be termed as such). A close season will have absolutely no effect on their activities.
An Early Day Motion, a method of gauging Parliamentary backbench feeling, has been tabled which states that, “This House deplores the shooting of hares throughout their breeding season as cruel and unnecessary”. Yet what is not mentioned in the EDM is the fact that hares have been known to breed virtually all year round, though mainly between February and September. So would landowners and farmers in certain areas tolerate such a close season?
According to Tom Oliver of the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust the concept of a ‘pre-emptive strike’ is a distinct possibility. Back in 2006, journalist Peter Oborne wrote that thousands of hares were shot in the months before the Hunting Act came into force in 2005. “They had been tolerated as a pest on account of coursing, but there is now no incentive for hard-pressed farmers to keep a healthy hare population alive in their fields.” wrote Oborne. It is not inconceivable that some farmers would do the same in the few days and weeks before a close season started if they felt justified in doing so to protect their crops.
The brown hare was one of the first animals put on the Biodiversity Action Plan list back in 1994 and contrary to the claims that it continues to decline, the People’s Trust for Endangered Species, in a report written last year by eminent wildlife expert Professor David Macdonald, indicated that numbers were now increasing. The level of 750,000 hares today is well below the 4 million thought to have been the population in the mid 1800s. Yet this is roughly the same level quoted some 30 years ago, which would seem to indicate that population is stable at the very least. While hare numbers in countries that do have close seasons continue to see a decline, this is not the case in England where there is no close season. Something must be going right on the conservation front.
What appears to be happening is that the conservation argument is being confused with the welfare argument. Understandably, there is concern over leverets left to die when the nursing hares are shot, but there is research that indicates the first litter in a year tends to be weaker than those produced later and that many of those early leverets do not survive. This might then have an effect on the general health of the hare population, given that poorer specimen wouldn’t breed. A close season that prevents shooting at this time of year may not necessarily prevent suffering or increase hare numbers.
The suffering of hares that are wounded is a different matter.
This point was graphically made in a distressing piece of footage of a hare shoot, during which an animal is wounded and is clearly seen trying to drag itself away.The shooter ignores its suffering and is even deaf to the frantic calls from the person filming to put the hare out of its misery. The writhing hare is left for well over two minutes for apparently no reason until another shooter casually walks up to break its neck. It is a nauseating scene that does the activity of shooting no favours. However, if this is what is prompting a close season, it is misplaced because it would not prevent such callous acts. I would be among many who would like to see that shooter prosecuted, but no law exists to make such an act a crime. Ironically, what would allow the shooter to be prosecuted is the introduction of a wild mammals welfare law, something which is opposed by certain anti-hunting groups. (see Wild mammal welfare and the Donoughue principle).
Two recent events at the House of Commons raised the matter of a close season for the brown hare. The first was a joint reception organised by the Humane Society International, the Hare Preservation Trust and Conservatives Against Fox Hunting; the second was a meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Shooting and Conservation.
Those organising the first event attempted to keep myself and representatives from the Countryside Alliance from entering. They appear not to want to debate the facts and thereby avoid those “awkward” questions. We were eventually permitted entry thanks to the intervention of MP Neil Parish, Chair of the Associate Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare, who sees the sense in properly discussing these issues. The literature distributed quoted a report on the status of the brown hare by Dr David Cowan and commissioned by DEFRA in 2004. It stated, “It could be argued that the introduction of a close season might be beneficial in terms of animal welfare through a reduction in culling of lactating females with dependent offspring.”
But what the leaflet omits is the very next sentence which says, “However, consideration would need to be given to allowing culling, presumably under licence, during any close season in the context of pest control. Furthermore, the current practice of culling hares, often during the breeding season, to reduce illegal poaching and coursing represents further ambiguity with regard to welfare concerns. It is thus unclear what net benefit the introduction of a close season would represent in terms of animal welfare.”
It is a real pity that some of those who argue so vehemently for an improvement in animal welfare cannot see that there is no shame in discussing their proposals with others who may hold a different view – ultimately that is the best way to produce laws that work.
Whether or not a close season for the brown hare comes about and for what period remains to be seen, but the points raised above need to be addressed and that means a sensible debate. There is absolutely no point to a close season that exists only on paper and means nothing in reality.
Look no further than the Hunting Act to see what can happen when a law is forced through Parliament on the back of ignorance, without a sound scientific basis and against the will of people who have to deal with the realities of life in the countryside.
Jim, your absolutely on the button about the practicalities of enforcing a ban. I’m particularly impressed by your knowledge of hares being shot to prevent poachers who simply use them to warm up the lurchers before embarking upon deer coursing in this neck of the woods. Dorset police has plenty of photographic evidence, I saw some years ago at a BASC meeting, horrendous photos that almost in every case involved deer found alive in the back of vans with injuries caused from lump hammers to screwdrivers for “finishing them off”. If we are talking about cruelty – this is cruelty. As someone who has taken part in a hare shoot to prevent poaching near roads, I can’t help think that the politicians are once again off target in promoting the well-being of our brown hares as a species when the poachers will be rubbing their hands gleefully with the prospect of having more ?
Thank you for the comment, Mike.
I really do wish that people, (unfortunately the antis in the main) would be prepared to talk to their opponents and learn a few things, instead of blocking debate and simply making a move when they think the political numbers are right. A poor reflection on some of our politicians, too.
Hello Jim,
This is a really good piece of analysis and you should be thanked for it. You’re also very brave to allow comment on it! You will know that I am a long standing supporter of the Hare Preservation Trust (HPT) and will not be at all surprised that I don’t agree with everything you say. However I hope you (and other readers) will take my comments in the spirit they are meant, and that I can encourage more thinking and debate on this issue.
You were right to list the many factors which have undoubtedly contributed to the decline in hare numbers. To that list, I would add increasing urbanisation and the improvement in firearms technology that led to an increase in shoot bags. (Apologies – I cannot put my hands on the research about firearms and so cannot date it.)
The geographical divide of hare populations is also well known and it’s one of the reasons that I personally argue for a regional close season. One of the many achievements of members of the Hare Preservation Trust is to build good relationships with farmers and landowners in many parts of the country, and I suspect that many of them would welcome a close season. I can almost hear people asking ‘How on earth would that work?’ More of that later.
I would imagine that the term illegal coursing is something of a hangover from before the 2005 Hunting Act where it was necessary to draw a distinction between legal and illegal coursing.
You state at one point that ‘the conservation argument is being confused with the welfare argument’. At risk of falling off my moral high horse, the two arguments are not, and indeed should not be, mutually exclusive!
In the same paragraph you talk about the first litter of the year being weaker leverets that are unlikely to survive. Serious wildlife observers are well aware of the vagaries of the natural cycle and the apparent cruelty of leveret deaths by natural cause or predation. But you didn’t mention that the breeding age females being shot would go on to produce healthier litters later in the year. In short – Mother Nature knows what she’s doing!
Rodney Hale of the Hare Preservation Trust has calculated that between 35 and 40 thousand dependent leverets are left to starve each year following the Spring shoots. But here’s the rub. No-one has been able to provide a figure of how many hares are being shot to start with. Hardly a good state of affairs from an animal in the Bio Diversity Action Plan!
Incidentally, the total number of all species killed by hounds (foxes, mink, deer and hares) was about 30 thousand annually, and look at the heat generated by the hunting debate as opposed to the ignorance about hare shooting.
Leaving aside the numbers for a moment, the systematic and deliberate slaughter (because that’s what it is) of breeding females at the period acknowledged as key in the annual breeding cycle is what most people find objectionable. Call me an old softie, but a culling activity which directly or indirectly targets the unborn or young of a species fills me with revulsion.
As for the methods used, it should be remembered that the shooting of hares in Britain is the largest cull of mammals where a shotgun is the weapon used. Capable of explosive speed and very sharp turns, hares are acknowledged to be very testing targets. The late Dr. Brian Vesey–Fitzgerald has a whole chapter criticising driven hare shoots in his book ‘It’s my Delight’. He relayed his experiences with driven hares and went as far as recommending a slightly different method of shooting which, in his considerable experience, was more likely to guarantee a clean kill. This was all eloquently and carefully committed to paper as far back as 1949, and yet today’s methods at shoots are much the same.
The HPT has been contacted in the past by a keeper who culls hares with a rifle and telescopic sight. The possibility of wounding can never be ruled out, but this method would also introduce the possibility of selection.
Much as I may find it unpleasant, I would place two demands on any culling activity; 1) that it is as humane as can be possible and 2) that it is carried out in a fashion which enhances the long term survivability prospects of the target species. That is, it is selective, removing old, sick or weak individuals in the absence of natural predation for example.
To return to what I mentioned earlier, I personally believe there is a strong case for a close season on a county by county basis. Admittedly this would not stop the massive drives in the East where serious welfare problems occur, but it would provide some measure of protection for hares in areas like the West Country.
I understand concerns around policing it, but remember we still have a county based police force, county based Naturalist Trusts, and a host of individuals who have an interest in this issue. To suggest that it could not be policed is to suggest that police officers, farmers, landowners, wildlife campaigners, shooters etc. are all incapable of reading a map!
Finally, just to reply to Mike Fry. The deer poaching you describe in Dorset sounds horrific and all responsible people should be working together to stop it. However Mike, I’m afraid I cannot understand the logic of killing animals because somebody else might come along to kill them. When this happens, we are all the losers and none more so than the hares to which we have some duty of care. They at least deserve a chance. It’s a bit like saying ‘There’s a really nice car over there. I’m going to steal it before someone less desirable than me comes along to steal it.’ It doesn’t make sense!
Mike Fry is exactly right. I am surprised that Mr. Hodges has not heard of this before, having to shoot hares to prevent illegal coursing is pretty well know. It is unfortunate, but hares have to be killed not to prevent illegal coursers from killing them (they probably won’t kill many anyway), but to prevent the disruption, violence and vandalism that comes with these people. It is unfortunate, but it has to be done. It would be better if the police could deal with these criminals more effectively.
Hi Howard,
Thanks for taking the time to read and reply to my email. However the argument of someone killing hares most likely to be poached by illegal hare coursers at night is done to rid many estates of the violence and shear vandalism associated with keeping hares (fences cut to let livestock wonder onto busy roads and tractor tyres slashed to name two) many see excessive culling as the only solution to a very real problem. What would you do Howard if your home was surrounded by travellers hell bent on setting an example to others who may interfere with their activities, they call it “stamping your card”. Put yourself in the shoes of the only true guardians of the hare for a minute, they live and work the land with so many fearing the reprisals towards them from poachers if they are suspected of informing the police.
Your reply to me was welcome but also disappointing, I would have expected your organisation to have understood the simple reasoning behind my writing. You clearly don’t understand the complexities of the Brown hare in Britain dispite plenty of “species” reading from your local libary. It just goes to show, too many courses and not enough soldiering can be a bad thing ?
Dear Howard,
I do realize that I was a little brash with you earlier, I apologize. Your not the only person who cares passionately about wildlife. Please get back on track with a better campaign stategy as apposed to the worthless non entity ban mentality which achieves virtually nothing and soon accounts for nothing. I’m not going to insult your intelligence by giving embarrassing examples for the politicians that support such strategies or against you for genuinely believing that a simplistic solution would resolve this complex problem. One of which wiill be that once a ban is implimented the public pats itself on the back and everyone including politicians will walk away having created an even bigger problem that will not benefit the hare one iota. Of course you could claim the opposite in your members newsletter and sadly some politicians will see the whole thing as little more then a publicity stunt. It’s a great pity we don’t bring like minded MP’s back after such an event to account for their failings in public ?
I urge you to keep discussions ongoing, I will happily committ myself to helping with your group. In theory a close season could work just as with all other forms of sustainable hunting, but in practice we all need to come up with a practical solution that takes into account the seriousness of the main problems the hares face. Believe me, to mention a ban as being the main priority for getting hare numbers up will drive the hare to the brink of extinction. That’s a prediction I hope I will never witness in my life time.
Jim Barrington correctly highlights the polarisation of hare numbers between the East and West. Here in the South West and in particular Cornwall it is possible for anyone to walk the countryside for days without seeing a single hare, so it is scandalous that hares can be legally shot in such areas at any time of the year, let alone during their breeding season.
The Defra report of 2004 mentions the need for “culling, presumably under licence, during any close season in the context of pest control”. In fact, during several years of lobbying by the Hare Preservation Trust for a close season Defra have consistently stated that farmers need the flexibility to cull at at any time of the year. So what would be the objection to making the brown hare a fully protected species with provision for culling whenever the need is proven to protect crops or forestry? This would serve both purposes of protecting fragile hare populations in western areas whilst giving farmers in areas where hares are relatively abundant the culling flexibility which Defra alleges they need. The welfare problem of orphaned leverets could be addressed by making the issue of licences during the main breeding period of February to September inclusive conditional upon a licence having been issued during the previous October to January, but the cull having proved ineffective.
With regard to wounding, section 6.66 of the Burns Report 2000 states: “As far as shooting hares is concerned, we received anecdotal evidence of high wounding rates on organised shoots which would undoubtedly lead to poor welfare.” Dr Douglas Wise of the University of Cambridge has estimated that 25-30% of the 390,000 hares shot annually are seriously wounded and easily retrieved, but a further 10% escape to an uncertain fate. Full protection for hares would reduce this toll of suffering in absolute terms, but further improvement would result from mandatory training on the use of shotguns for anyone wishing to shoot live quarry. This is the case in France where applicants for gun licences have to pass theory and practical tests organised by the National Hunting and Wildlife Agency. This would not prevent injured hares being callously left to suffer as mentioned by Jim but would at least ensure shooters have attained a level of competence which minimises the risk of wounding in the first place.
A late reply to Mike Fry and David.
Gentlemen – I have been aware of hares being killed to deter poaching for many years. You’ve just never seen me comment on it before! Like each of you, it appals me to think that law and order could break down to such an extent, leaving farmers and landowners in this dreadful (and frightening) predicament. It’s totally unacceptable that they are victims of such lawlessness, and a further pity that hares are being killed as an indirect result of the situation. As I said in my first post, we are all the poorer when such situations come about.
I don’t know where you chaps live, but in Cambridgeshire, the police started to ‘throw the book’ at poachers with some success. The problem is that they may have simply pushed the crime into neighbouring counties, in the way that closed circuit television monitoring in town centres is thought to have pushed crime out to other areas rather than to have prevented it completely.
Mike – I certainly wouldn’t claim to be an expert on this issue, but it’s a bit unfair to claim I don’t understand the complexities of the brown hare in Britain. Yes, I’m pretty well read but you might credit me with learning a thing or two in the few seasons I spent with beagles (both pre and post the Hunting Act)!!
I’ve just re-read my original post. It does not contain the word ‘ban’ anywhere. As I did state, I accept that there may be reasonable grounds to cull animals in some circumstances. My issue is with some of the rationale offered as justification, and also with methods used.
Again, I don’t believe that a simplistic solution would solve this complex problem. In fact I have been accused by both ‘sides’ in this debate of making things more complicated by suggesting a regional close season! I can’t win.
Like each of you gents, I would not support any political initiative which risked creating a bigger problem, or one which I didn’t believe would benefit hares. Politicians can be strange creatures, and have many motivational factors behind their actions. In many cases it may be as simple as a gut feeling that so many animals are being killed that makes them want to react.
This is why I personally fully support efforts by the HPT to keep open channels of dialogue with all parties (in the face of some hostility from within) to try and agree a way forward. It would make much more sense if all interested parties could agree amongst themselves, and then present Parliament with a ‘fait accompli’ almost, or to agree to change the status quo without recourse to the law. Can you imagine how the heat would have gone out of the fox hunting debate for example, if hunts voluntarily stopped digging out?
I suspect that if that were to come about, we would see both sides get some of what they want and lose out in some areas. In a sense, if nobody was totally happy, that might make for the best result for hares. Let’s keep talking.
Dear Howard,
You seem an alright sort of guy. But if you think the heat would have been taken out of hunting with a voluntary ban on terrier work, your greatly mistaken. IFAW had paid millions of pounds to engage the Labour party into thinking about foxes if nothing else, the ban had precisely the same result as the incompetant handling of the economy, NHS, education and sustainable migration before we have nowhere for the hare to live ?
In Dorset there already is a voluntary ban in place on many estates because of the decline of the hare, they have been in place in some instances for over twenty years. The biggest threat to hare numbers here is poaching, it’s running at pandemic proportions while the poachers simply move about virtually unhindered from one estate to the next. The only good populations of hares to be found in the main are on shoots where multiple game keepers are employed. Because of the expensive pro-active work undertaken at a time when incomes from farming are low, it’s commendable that some landowners are spending their narrow profit margin on conservation.
I agree with you in respect of the law, but with regards to poaching the maximum fine for the first offence is still only £18-. The truth is that people romaticise over poaching, they think it’s one for the bag and overlook the fact that it’s unsustainable, often cruel (especially with deer) and is often accompanied with acts of violence and criminal damage against the landowners staff. It’s my opinion that we need a real deterrent against poachers, I would change the law so that those suspected of poaching had their lurchers confiscated until after the court hearing. If found guilty the lurchers would be destroyed. The proposed closed season or even aban on shooting hares will simply see the hare population dwindle further and make it not the preserve of the countryman, but the sport of poachers who couldn’t give a damn about anything or anyone.
It’s good to see some constructive dialogue on this issue. On the face of it Howard’s idea of a close season in some areas but not others might make sense. This seems to be a proposal at least attempting to base itself on the issues of animal welfare and conservation rather than ideology.
Hi Howard,
I’m back, but your right, we are having a constructive dialogue over animal welfare, which is something you would never find with the single issue animal rights brigade who are dependant on emotive arguments to encourage irrational thought over any given subject. Their’s is a complete nonsense that belongs in the loony bin.
In politics there are no halfway measures, it’s either a compulsory ban on everyone including those fortunate enough to have sufficient hares to cull or influential groups using their influence for the hare to be made a protected species. I prefer the present situation, whereby if the hare population dwindles, responsible landowners continue implimenting voluntary bans.
Poaching in contrst, is mentioned in my previous letters, I feel we should all be using any opportunity at wildlife legislation to curb that vile activity first with better practical deterrents which are easily enforced by the law. That one act alone will do more for the welfare of our hares then a closed season or possibly a complete ban ????