Hare coursing

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Greyhounds coursing a hare, Dean Wolstenholme
Greyhounds coursing a hare, Dean Wolstenholme

Hare coursing is the pursuit of hares with Greyhounds and other sighthounds, which chase the hare by sight and not by scent. It 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.

Coursing is a long established and common hunting technique, practiced both by the nobility with Greyhounds and by commoners with lurchers. The sport grew dramatically in popularity, especially in the nineteenth century, but has declined subsequently.

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.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] 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.[1] 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.[2] It is from Arrian that the most famous quote on the sporting fairness of coursing originates "…true huntsmen do not take out their hounds to catch the creature, but for a trial of speed and a race, and they are satisfied if the hare manages to find something that will rescue her".[3][4][5][6] 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.[7][8] Coursing crossed the class divide,[9] and there were more than 150 coursing clubs in Britain at the activity's peak in the 1800s,[8] although this number had fallen to below 30 by 2000, a fall which the National Coursing Club attributes to the introduction of urban greyhound racing in the 1920s.[4]

[edit] Informal coursing

The oldest form of hare coursing simply involved two dogs chasing a hare, the winner being the dog that caught the hare; this could be for pest control, for food or for sport. In order to indulge in the practice, various cross breeds (under the generic term lurchers) were developed and, still today, such animals may be specifically bred for coursing.[10] 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.[11] Informal coursing sometimes does have the landowner's permission, and is sometimes done using a single lurcher.[12]

[edit] Description of formal hare coursing

Modern hare coursing is practiced using a number of sighthounds: mainly Greyhounds but also Borzois,[13] Salukis, Whippets,[14] and Deerhounds[15] 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. [4]

Such hare coursing has a number of variations in how it is undertaken. Open coursing takes place in the open, and closed (or park or Irish style) coursing takes place in an enclosure with an escape route. Open coursing is either run as walked-up coursing where a line of people walk through the countryside to flush out a hare, or as driven coursing (such as the Waterloo Cup), where hares are driven by beaters towards the coursing field. In each case, when a suitable hare appears, a person known as a slipper uses a slip with two collars to release two dogs at the same time, in pursuit of the hare which is given a head start (known as fair law), usually between 80-100 yards (70–90 metres).[4]

The chased hare will then run at 40–45 km/h (24–26 mph)[16] and the course will last around 35–40 seconds over a third of a mile.[4] The greyhounds which pursue the hare will, being faster, start to catch up with it. Since the Greyhounds are much bigger than the hare, and much less agile, they find it hard to follow the hare's sharp turns, which it makes as the greyhounds threaten to reach it. This agility gives the hare an important and often crucial advantage as it seeks, usually successfully, to escape.[4] Under National Coursing Club rules, the dogs are awarded points on how many times they can turn the hare, and how closely they follow the hare's 'course'. The contest between the Greyhounds is judged from horseback and the winning greyhound will proceed to the next round of a knock-out tournament.[4] By 2003, the UK coursing season ran from 1 October to 28 February.[17]

[edit] Variations in Irish coursing

League Against Cruel Sports leaflet showing a hare being coursed by muzzled greyhounds
League Against Cruel Sports leaflet showing a hare being coursed by muzzled greyhounds

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.[18] and claimed, by its organisers, to be worth up to €16 million for the local economy.[19] There are around 70 formal coursing clubs in the Republic, and two in Northern Ireland,[16] together holding 80–85 meetings per year.[20]

There are several differences between the rules of coursing in Great Britain (where it is regulated by the National Coursing Club) and Irish coursing which has been organised by Irish Coursing Club since 1916.[21] Because hares are not plentiful in all parts of the island of Ireland, mainly due to modern agricultural practices,[22] coursing clubs are licensed by the Irish Government to net 70–75 hares for their events.[16] The hares are then transported in boxes to the coursing venue where they are kept for up to eight weeks and trained to be coursed.

Instead of being coursed on open land, the Irish form is run in a secure enclosure over a set distance. Since 1993, Irish Coursing Club rules have made it compulsory for the greyhounds to be muzzled while they chase the hare.[16] After the coursing event, the hares are transported back to where they were netted and re-released into the wild.[16][18] Reports by Government wardens, published under freedom of information legislation state that hares have sometimes been coursed more than once at the same event.

Whereas the British form of coursing is run with dogs winning points for their running and turning of the hare, the Irish form is run on the basis that the first dog to turn the hare wins.[18] This is denoted by either a red flag or a white flag, indicating the colours of the respective dogs' collars.

[edit] Variations in the United States

Organised coursing meets were taking place in the United States by 1886, using greyhounds introduced to help farmers control jackrabbits.[23] Open field coursing of jackrabbits, which are members of the hare family,[24] now takes place in a number of states in Western America, including California, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Montana, Utah and Wyoming.[25][26] It takes place with up to four dogs chasing the hare.[27]

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 and Wyoming but illegal in Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Vermont and Wisconsin[28] The pro-coursing campaign, Stop2110 says that open field coursing is legal in all US states with a huntable population of jackrabbits.[29] 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.[30]

The leading United States coursing body, the National Open Field Coursing Association, lists 480 dogs of various breeds as being registered with it[31] and 83 events taking place in the 2006-07 coursing season.[32] Its quarry is the Black-tailed Jackrabbit. Coursing of White-tailed Jackrabbits is organised by a smaller body, the North American Coursing Association.[13]

[edit] In other countries

According to the UK Government review, the Burns Inquiry, hare coursing also takes place in Pakistan, Portugal and Spain.[25] Pakistan has officially prohibited the use of dogs or hawks for coursing unless a special license is issued for carrying out such activity[33][34] although, according to some reports, hare coursing is still practiced and popular.[25] Hare coursing in Portugal is closed (park) coursing[25] where it is known as lebre a corricão[35]. Hare coursing in Portugal may only be legally undertaken with two dogs[36] and operates under the same ethos as coursing in Britain and the United States.[37] In Spain, the hare coursing is 'open coursing'[25], and the areas where the activity takes place includes the Medina area.[38] 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)[39] that "there are many ways to kill these animals (the hares), but I will tell you that in Spain they chase them with Galgos, because here the dogs are extremely fast, as some of the hares are".[40] Spanish galgos are used for coursing[41], 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. [42]

Hare coursing is illegal in most European countries[43] and in Australia, where it had a long history from 1867 until it was banned in 1985 following a long decline in popularity.[44]

[edit] Lure coursing

Main article: Lure coursing

Lure coursing is a sport for dogs based on hare coursing,[45] 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.[46] However, coursers believe that, while lure coursing is good athletic exercise for their dogs,[47] it does not approximate the testing vigour and sport of live coursing.[48]

[edit] Controversy

Sometimes, a hare is caught by two greyhounds.
Sometimes, a hare is caught by two greyhounds.

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".[49]

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[50] and the League Against Cruel Sports was established in 1924 to campaign against rabbit coursing on Morden Common[51] and continues to claim that it is wrong to expose animals to the risk of injury or death for human entertainment.[52] The Waterloo Cup became a centrepiece of the campaign against coursing in the UK.[53][54]

[edit] 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".[55] 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".[56]

The Burns Inquiry, set up by the Government to examine hunting with dogs in England and Wales,[57] 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 do not 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 is not already dead). In the case of walked-up coursing, the delay is likely to be even longer".[58]

[edit] 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.[16] Hares can either die due to injuries sustained by contact with the much larger dogs or due to capture myopathy.[59] 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".[60] 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.[18]

In the context of open (not park) coursing, the (British) National Coursing Club evidence to the Burns Inquiry said that muzzled coursing can cause more suffering than unmuzzled if the coursing officials are not able to reach injured hares quickly;[61] the Irish Council Against Bloodsports has video evidence that shows this happening, even in enclosed coursing.[62].

Informal coursing and illegal hare killings are strongly opposed by both sets of supporters.

[edit] 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".[4] but this rule had been deleted by early 2003 in order to remove the appearance of the kill incentive.[63] In the United States, points are still awarded for a "touch ... where the quarry is captured or killed".[27] The number of hares killed in coursing is unclear. The UK Government's Burns Inquiry said that about 250 hares were killed each year in formal coursing.[64] 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.[61] RSPCA inspectors who attended the event estimated that a greater number, one in five hares coursed were killed.[65]

Observers of hare coursing at the Waterloo Cup regularly reported a minority of people in the crowd cheering when hares were killed.[66]

[edit] 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[67] – and coursing is sometimes defended on that basis[29] even though the U.S. Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife has said that coursing does not "reduce the population enough to alleviate damage".[68]

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.[69] Some coursers claim that coursing assists conservation because it leads to sporting landowners creating a habitat suitable for hares.[61] Opponents of coursing say that the converse is true, namely that coursing takes place where hares live rather than hares living where coursing takes place.[70] It is also the case that coursing kills slower hares,[16] and it is claimed by some coursers that this leaves faster hares to breed and multiply.[12]

[edit] Debate and legislation

[edit] In the UK

Prime Minister Harold Wilson tried and failed to ban hare coursing in 1969 and 1975.
Prime Minister Harold Wilson tried and failed to ban hare coursing in 1969 and 1975.

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.[71] 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.[72] 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.[73] A prosecution is pending against seven individuals for allegedly attending a hare coursing event in Yorkshire in March 2007.[74]

[edit] 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[18] and have protected them from being coursed or hunted under the Game Preservation (Northern Ireland) Act.[75][76] The two Northern Ireland coursing clubs therefore travel to the Republic to hold meetings jointly with coursing clubs there.[20]

Opinion polls commissioned by the League Against Cruel Sports as part of its campaigning have shown very strong public opposition to hare coursing from both urban and rural residents of both Northern Ireland[77] and the Republic.[78]

[edit] 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.[79] Coursing was banned in the County concerned[80] 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.[29] The Bill was passed by the Public Safety Committee[28] but died in the Assembly Appropriations Committee which is responsible for considering the benefits of a bill in relation to its cost.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

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