HARES NEED BREEDING PROTECTION
Sunday July 1 st 2012
By Stuart Winter
An estimated 390,000 hares are killed each year
GOD must have enjoyed putting the hare together.
Gangly legs, preposterous ears, a twitchy nose that can detect a scent miles off and then those eyes, those all-seeing, gimlet eyes, that can delve into a man’s soul.
Brown hares have bounded their way through mythology like no other creature. Ancient cultures worshipped and revered these fleet-of-foot denizens of open landscapes and big skies, and the great English poet John Clare captured their very essence with his words: The timid hares throw daylight fears away, on the lane road to dust and dance and play…
When Clare’s quill celebrated the hare in the early 19th century, four million of these docile animals inhabited the British countryside. Some 200 years later, the population has declined to 750,000 and continues to diminish.
Habitat loss and industrial scale farming have done for the hare. Flower-speckled fields have morphed to chemical-laced, cereal deserts dissected by motorways. No place for an animal of open country.
A Defra action plan to double brown hare numbers has floundered and yet one of the most incredible loopholes in English law still imperils this vanishing species.
At present there is no legal protection for hares during their breeding season. Although close seasons exist in Belgium, Spain, France, Germany, Ireland and even Scotland, female hares can be shot in England while still suckling leverets.
An estimated 390,000 hares are killed each year.
How many are taken for the pot or simply killed to stop hare-coursing gangs trespassing on fields is open to conjecture. The Hares Preservation Act was introduced in 1892 to protect the animals from “inconsiderate slaughter” to provide protection during their breeding season.
Yet 120 years later we still await legal safeguards to stop them being killed during this sensitive period.
Fortunately, things are moving in Parliament.
Last week the Humane Society International, Hare Preservation Trust and Conservatives Against Fox Hunting held an all-party reception to increase pressure on lawmakers to follow Scotland’s lead and provide a close season for hares.
An Early Day Motion (EDM 2531) has already attracted 146 signatures and an excellent short fi lm from the Humane Society International/UK is on YouTube to highlight the issue.
Mark Jones, veterinarian and executive director of HSI/UK, told me: “It’s not surprising that our hare populations are struggling to recover.
Humane Society International/UK wants to see urgent action to protect these magical and iconic wild animals from unnecessary suffering and further decline, through the introduction of a close season.”
Please write to your MP and help save these wonderful creatures.
