Everything about Hare Coursing totally explained
Hare coursing is the
coursing of
hares, that's to say the
hunting of them with
sighthounds. Formal hare coursing is a competitive sport in which dogs are tested on their ability to turn a hare, although it has a number of variations in its rules around the world. Informal coursing is often conducted to kill, either for betting or for food.
In recent decades, controversy has developed around hare coursing, with some viewing it as a cruel
bloodsport and others seeing it as a traditional activity, one that assists in the conservation of hares and tests the ability of a greyhound. Since 2002, hare coursing has been banned in
Great Britain but continues elsewhere in the world, especially in the
Republic of Ireland and the
Western United States.
History
Formal coursing
Whether for sporting or hunting purposes, hare coursing was historically restricted to landowners and the
nobility, who used
sighthounds, the ownership of which was at certain historic times prohibited among the lower
social classes. The oldest documented description of hare coursing is the work
Kynegetikos (Greek), otherwise known as
Cynegeticus (Latin), which was written by
Arrian circa 180 AD. This volume, known from its first complete English translation as
On Coursing 1831, by William Dansey, was considered by its original author as a necessary addition to the classic work of the same name
Cynegeticus (
On Hunting) – scent hunting – by
Xenophon. Arrian felt compelled to describe the sight hunt and sighthounds because the ancient Greeks only knew the scent hunt.
Arrian's description of coursing most likely originates from the Iberian peninsula, where he functioned as proconsul in Baetica. He described hare coursing as carried out by the Iberian
Celts, of all social classes. The dogs that were used were called
vertragus (Latin) from
ouertragos (Greek)
swift of foot, which were introduced into Western Europe by the Celts, and said to be the antecedents of the modern greyhound. It is from Arrian that the most famous quote on the sporting fairness of coursing originates "…true huntsmen don't take out their hounds to catch the creature, but for a trial of speed and a race, and they're satisfied if the hare manages to find something that will rescue her." The competitive version of hare coursing was given definitive form when the first complete set of
English rules was drawn up in the reign of
Elizabeth I by Thomas Duke of Norfolk. Coursing crossed the
class divide, and there were more than 150 coursing clubs in Britain at the activity's peak in the 1800s, Informal coursing is nearly always
poaching, lacking the landowner's permission, and is often seen as a major problem by landowners and by the police. Informal coursing sometimes does have the landowner's permission, and is sometimes done using a single lurcher.
Salukis,
Whippets, and
Deerhounds that are registered with a governing body such as the
National Coursing Club or
Kennel Club in Great Britain, the
Irish Coursing Club or the
National Open Field Coursing Association (NOFCA) in the US. Events are conducted through local coursing clubs which are regulated by their governing body. The objective of coursing is to test and judge the athletic ability of the dogs rather than to kill the hare.
The chased hare will then run at 40–45 km/h (24–26 mph) and the course will last around 35–40 seconds over a third of a mile.
Variations in Irish coursing
Hare coursing is popular in the
Republic of Ireland, with the national meeting in
Clonmel,
County Tipperary, the most important event in the coursing calendar, attracting 10,000 spectators. and claimed, by its organisers, to be worth up to €16 million for the local economy. There are around 70 formal coursing clubs in the Republic, and two in
Northern Ireland,
There are several differences between the rules of coursing in Great Britain (where it's regulated by the
National Coursing Club) and Irish coursing which has been organised by
Irish Coursing Club since 1916. Because hares are not plentiful in all parts of the island of Ireland, mainly due to modern agricultural practices, coursing clubs are licensed by the Irish Government to net 70–75 hares for their events.
Open field coursing of
jackrabbits, which are members of the hare family, now takes place in a number of states in Western America, including
California,
Idaho,
Nevada,
New Mexico,
Montana,
Utah and
Wyoming It takes place with up to four dogs chasing the hare.
The legality of coursing across the United States is unclear. Animal Place, California-based animal rights group, claims that such hare coursing is legal in California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah & Wyoming but illegal in Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Vermont & Wisconsin The pro-coursing campaign, Stop2110 says that open field coursing is legal in all US states with a huntable population of jackrabbits.
Washington state lists jackrabbits as a protected species, due to an unusually low population for a western state, and bans all forms of hunting them.
The leading United States coursing body, the National Open Field Coursing Association, lists 480 dogs of various breeds as being registered with it and 83 events taking place in the coursing season. Its quarry is the
Black-tailed Jackrabbit. Coursing of
White-tailed Jackrabbits is organised by a smaller body, the North American Coursing Association. although, according to some reports, hare coursing is still practiced and popular.. Hare coursing in Portugal may only be legally undertaken with two dogs and operates under the same ethos as coursing in Britain and the United States. In Spain, the hare coursing is 'open coursing' Coursing in Spain has a long history, with Martinez del Espinar writing in his 1644 book
Arte de Ballesteria y Monteria (The Arts of Archery and Riding) that "there are many ways to kill these animals (the hares), but I'll tell you that in Spain they chase them with Galgos, because here the dogs are extremely fast, as some of the hares are."
Spanish galgos are used for coursing, but have a precarious life after their coursing careers, with the
World Society for the Protection of Animals suggesting that many tens of thousands die cruelly each year.
Hare coursing is illegal in most European countries and in Australia, where it had a long history from 1867 until it was banned in 1985 following a long decline in popularity.
Lure coursing
Lure coursing is a sport for dogs based on hare coursing, but involving dogs chasing a mechanically operated lure. Some critics of hare coursing suggest that coursers could test their dogs through sports such as
lure coursing. However, coursers believe that, while lure coursing is good athletic exercise for their dogs, it doesn't approximate the testing vigour and sport of live coursing.
Controversy
As long ago as 1516,
Thomas More wrote in
Utopia that,
» "Thou 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."
Coursing has long sparked opposition from those concerned about
animal welfare activists.
Henry Salt criticised hare coursing as an "aggravated form of torture" in 1915 and the
League Against Cruel Sports was established in 1924 to campaign against
rabbit coursing on
Morden Common and continues to claim that it's wrong to expose animals to the risk of injury or death for human entertainment. The
Waterloo Cup became a centrepiece of the campaign against coursing in the UK.
Welfare arguments
Until more recently, there was a dearth of scientific evidence on the welfare impact of coursing. The first thorough study was carried out in 1977–79 by the
Universities Federation for Animal Welfare, albeit that they said that it was "not easy to draw conclusions from these reports." According to a review of this study conducted for the
Burns Inquiry, "Of the 53 hares killed, 43 had neck injuries, 18 of which were inflicted by the handler (as evidenced from a clean break and no teeth marks). No clean breaks were believed to have been caused by dogs (where tooth marks were evident). The UFAW team’s assessment was that all chest injuries would have been quickly fatal (in six cases these included a punctured heart); 10 animals without neck injuries had chest injuries. Abdominal injuries included six punctured livers, but generally involved a ruptured gut. In the UFAW team’s opinion, hindleg and back injuries could have been extremely painful until chest or neck injuries were inflicted."
The
Burns Inquiry, set up by the Government to examine hunting with dogs in England and Wales, concluded that "We are ... satisfied that being pursued, caught and killed by dogs during coursing seriously compromises the welfare of the hare. It is clear, moreover, that, if the dog or dogs catch the hare, they don't always kill it quickly. There can also sometimes be a significant delay, in
driven coursing, before the
picker-up reaches the hare and dispatches it (if it isn't already dead). In the case of
walked-up coursing, the delay is likely to be even longer."
Welfare arguments in Irish style coursing
Hare coursing in the Republic of Ireland is opposed by the
Irish Council Against Bloodsports. Since the introduction of muzzling for greyhounds in 1993, deaths to hares are less common, falling from an average of 16% to about 4% of hares coursed (reducing to around 150–200 hares per year). Muzzled dogs are more likely to buffet a hare than to bite it, a factor that may still affect the hare's subsequent survival. The report from the official Countryside ranger at the Wexford Coursing Club meeting in December 2003 confirms that, exceptionally, 40 hares died at the event and the report of the veterinary surgeon who examined the hares blames the "significant stress" of being "corralled and coursed.". Coursing supporters deny that hare coursing is cruel and say that hares that are injured, pregnant or ill are not allowed to run. Hares are reported to be examined by a vet before and after racing. the Irish Council Against Bloodsports has video evidence that shows this happening, even in enclosed coursing..
Informal coursing and illegal hare killings are strongly opposed by both sets of supporters.
The kill
In 2000, the rules of the National Coursing Club awarded a point to a greyhound that killed a hare "through superior dash and speed." In the United States, points are still awarded for a "touch ... where the quarry is captured or killed." although much larger numbers of kills are believed to take place in informal coursing.
The National Coursing Club and the organisers of the Waterloo Cup – the most important event in the UK coursing calendar – each said that, on average, one in seven or eight hares coursed were killed.
Observers of hare coursing at the Waterloo Cup regularly reported a minority of people in the crowd cheering when hares were killed.
Conservation/Pest control
In different parts of the world two contrasting arguments are made in favour of hare coursing. In some places, high densities of hare are considered as agricultural
pests – a view taken, for example, by the California Dept. of Agriculture – and coursing is sometimes defended on that basis
Elsewhere, such as in the UK, hares are not always seen as pests, and there are 'species action plans' aiming to significantly increase their numbers. Some coursers claim that coursing assists conservation because it leads to sporting landowners creating a habitat suitable for hares. It is also the case that coursing kills slower hares,
Debate and legislation
In the UK
The practice of hare coursing has only recently, in historical terms, been debated in
Parliament, although Parliament created an exemption in
1921 from the
cruelty legislation, the
Protection of Animals Act 1911, for animals released for coursing.
Eric Heffer, MP for
Liverpool Walton, was a major opponent of coursing in the late 1960s, and the then Prime Minister
Harold Wilson joined in the criticism of coursing. Under his premiership, the
House of Commons voted for Government Bills to ban hare coursing in 1969 and in 1975, but neither law passed the
House of Lords to become law. In
2002, the
Scottish Parliament passed the
Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act which banned hare coursing in
Scotland. In
2004 the British Parliament passed the
Hunting Act, which banned hare coursing as well as other forms of hunting with hounds with effect from
18 February,
2005. A prosecution is pending against seven individuals for allegedly attending a hare coursing event in Yorkshire in March 2007.
In Northern Ireland
No formal coursing has taken place in
Northern Ireland since 2002, as Ministers have refused the coursing clubs permission to net hares for coursing The two Northern Ireland coursing clubs therefore travel to the Republic to hold meetings jointly with coursing clubs there. and the Republic.
In California
In early 2006, the TV channel
ABC 7 showed a film of coursing with sets of three greyhounds competing in the chase of a number of hares. Coursing was banned in
the County concerned and California Assemblywoman
Loni Hancock promoted a bill, AB2110, to make it a crime for any person in California to engage in "open field coursing" defined as a "competition in which dogs are, by the use of rabbits, hares, or foxes, assessed as to skill in hunting live rabbits, hares, or foxes." A pro-coursing campaign was also established.
The Bill was passed by the Public Safety Committee
but died in the Assembly
Appropriations Committee which is responsible for considering the benefits of a bill in relation to its cost.
Further Information
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