BAD HARE DAY
The fate of the mad March hare is uncertain thanks to coursing and habitat loss
The brown hare features more in our everyday lives than any other British mammal. Most of us probably hardly even notice its many guises, adorning mugs, cards, jewellery and books, paintings, ceramics ornaments and toys. Popularly alluring and held in high esteem, the hare is linked to a wealth of folklore and mysticism, and has long-held lunar associations. Its fabulous kick-boxing and acrobatically amorous displays, which are most seen in spring but continue on into summer, have thrilled and delighted us for generations.
Yet the brown hare is currently under siege, and numbers have crashed. With the catastrophic loss of 95% of traditional hay meadows across the country since the Second World War, plus the demise of the great British hedgerow and changes in farming policies, our countryside becomes increasingly depleted of wildlife. But there are other equally worrying evils at work associated with hares that currently instil fear into farmers, landowners and those living and working in rural areas.
Brown hares are widespread and were introduced to several Hebridean islands, including Islay, Coll and Tiree, and to Orkney, in the mid 1800s. Unlike rabbits, they have never been domesticated. Their meat has always been less popular being strong tasting and sinewy, though a good plump hare might have once fed a family for several days. Jugged hare, a rich delicacy, was however previously eaten. My mother made it on several occasions, but I remember that it was unbearably powerful and gamey. Rennin from a leveret’s stomach was frequently used for cheese making in the Highlands, and hare fur was felted, and is still used today to make the well-known trout fly, the March Brown.
Though hares are in the same family as the non-native rabbit, they are a completely separate species. Whilst rabbits give birth to numerous naked, blind and helpless babies, hares have smaller litters, and leverets are born fully furred, with eyes open and with the ability to pick at vegetation soon after birth. Hares don’t live in colonies and whilst rabbits burrow, hares don’t, and instead make themselves a shallow scrape in the ground known as a form. Promiscuity is one aspect shared by both
‘Hare coursing is a major problem in many rural areas of Scotland’
species, though the hare has an extraordinary trait in that it is physically able to be pregnant with two litters at the same time.
This is called superconception, or superfetation. It allows a doe to mate shortly before she is due to give birth, and for the new embryos to wait in the wings until the full-term litter is born. Basically they are queued up in the oviduct in a similar way to cars awaiting a space in a multi-storey parking lot. This second litter will therefore be born after a gestation of only 38 days, compared to the usual 42 days. The hare is one of the few mammals that can do this.
Hares, like rabbits, eat their own droppings. Called refection, in simple terms it allows them to thoroughly digest cellulose and other nutrients in plant matter. After they have eaten, the initial soft droppings they produce are only partially digested. These are consumed to extract valuable remaining sustenance. The subsequent droppings that are made are harder and drier, and pass through the hare again but will remain uneaten.
There are few sights as captivating as watching the brown hare’s elegant lope, or astonishing burst of speed across a wide-open space. Due to this and its agility, it is inevitable that it should have long been viewed as a quarry animal.
Hare coursing was introduced to this country around Roman times, and was a popular sport until it was finally banned in Scotland in 2005. But it has always been a controversial pastime.
As far back as the early 1500s Thomas More wrote, ‘Though shouldst rather be moved with pity to see a silly innocent hare murdered of a dog, the weak of the stronger, the fearful of the fierce, the innocent of the cruel and unmerciful. Therefore, all this exercise of hunting is a thing unworthy to be used of free men.’
A resurgence in hare coursing
Despite the ban, illegal hare coursing – one of the most despicable wildlife crimes – has raised its ugly head again and is currently a major problem in many rural areas of Scotland. As rabbits are excluded from the Protection of Wild Mammals Act of 2002, many people engaged in casual hare coursing are hard to convict since they claim their dogs were merely chasing rabbits. During spring, and towards the end of summer when crops have been harvested, coursing becomes increasingly popular.
Gangs, many prepared to travel great distances, take to remote areas of the countryside, travelling along circuitous little roads, scanning arable ground and large open fields with binoculars looking for the hunkered, rounded shape of a hare at ease.
Stubble fields make it harder to spot their quarry, but coursers are skilled, and have extensive knowledge of the best places to find hares. Whilst there are some known coursing hot spots, remote islands such as Tiree are not off the courser’s radar, and there have even been records, and indeed convictions, of this cruel sport in other Hebridean islands. Hare coursing is serious business and may involve heavy bets with large sums changing hands.
A minimum of two dogs is required, though sometimes many more are used – lurchers, greyhounds, salukis, whippet crosses, and other sight hounds. Lines of men striding across fields drive the unfortunate hare forward
to waiting dogs. The hare stands no chance. It is not even as if the hare is being hunted for the pot; all that the gamblers require is for the unfortunate beast to be caught. Sometimes the hare is torn to bits, but more frequently it’s left wounded and dying whilst the criminals flee.
In recent years, Police Scotland has launched several campaigns to tackle this problem. They have also urged members of the public to stay vigilant, and to look out for battered vans, or 4x4s loaded with dogs, on quiet roads. And it is not only hares that are in grave danger.
Farmers report many incidences of sheep worrying associated with hare coursing, of gates and fences damaged and left open, of livestock breaking out onto busy roads where they may cause traffic accidents, and of serious crop damage as 4x4 vehicles are driven through fields. The lambing season is of particular concern. The courser’s dogs may also be at risk from exhaustion and poor husbandry, with some abandoned. Last year, DNA found on hares left at the scene of the crime matched that of the dogs used and led to successful convictions.
When Robert Burns witnessed the wounding of a hare on his farm at Ellisland in Ayrshire, its almost human cry upset him so deeply that
he wrote a poem, On Seeing A Wounded Hare
Limp By Me, Which A Fellow had Shot. He was so disturbed that he threatened to physically chuck the perpetrator – ‘Inhuman man! curse on thy barb’rous art, And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye’ – off his land.
A hare’s cry is indeed harrowing; many dedicated sportsmen claim it has put them off shooting hares altogether. The barbarity of coursing means that it’s a heart-rending cry heard all too often as more illegal events take place. With increased surveillance we can help to finally stamp out this scourge so that the beautiful, peaceable brown hare may start to recover and again become a frequent sight.