Coursing
Hare raising
Simon Courtauld
he Stock Exchange may no longer close for the occasion, as it used to in the last century, nor will there be a mass migration northwards to Lancashire; but a few thou- sand sportsmen will gather for three days next week at Altcar for the annual Blue Riband of the Leash. We are talking here of greyhounds and hares and the highlight of the coursing season, the Waterloo Cup.
It was in 1836 that the proprietor of the Waterloo Hotel, Liverpool, inaugurated not only this coursing meeting but also a steeplechase for gentleman riders which came to be known as the Grand National. The punters, many of them Irish enthusiasts from across the water, would go from bet- ting on the dogs one day to horses the next.
Today the purpose and practice of organ- ised coursing are widely misunderstood, there are fewer hares about, and the sport has been in decline for some years. Next week, however, three or four bookmakers will find it worth their while to turn up at Altcar; demonstrations by 'antis' are unlike- ly to disrupt the meeting (the Lancashire constabulary consists mostly of coursing supporters); and the number of hares killed over the three days will probably be in sin- gle figures, from a total of nearly 100 cours- es run. At least, on this well-keepered estate, there will be no shortage of the hares which are driven expertly by lines of beaters on to the coursing field.
Hares were in much shorter supply on Salisbury Plain the other day, as I com- mented to a visiting master of a French pack of beagles who was surveying the Wiltshire countryside. 'C'est un teMtoire magrufique,' he said, almost reverentially, as we watched 15 couple of the Palmer Milburn Beagles working away to our left. Magnifique it was indeed, on a freezing, limpidly bright winter's day; but where were the hares? None had been seen when I turned back after an hour, though I heard that three were found later in the day. No one was surprised, or disappointed, at the paucity of hares. It had been a grand day out on the plain. In the 19th century, however, the sport might have been rather different.
We were hunting about two miles from the village of Netheravon, where in 1822 William Cobbett recorded, in Rural Rides, that he saw 'an acre of hares' while cours- ing. He was taken into a field of stubble by the local farmer, whose son 'took a gallop round, cracking his whip at the same time; the hares (which were very thickly in sight before) started all over the field, ran into a flock like sheep and we all agreed that the flock did cover an acre of ground'. At Holkham in Norfolk, more than 1,000 hares were shot in a day on several occa- sions during the late-19th century; and the Field stated in 1921 that if anyone wanted to establish a record bag Salisbury Plain would be the best place to try. I began to wonder what had happened to bring about such an apparently alarming decline in the hare population, and whether the species might now be endangered.
There are those who fondly imagine that the hare could be 'saved' by banning the sports of coursing and beagling, but the facts do not support them. The proportion of a local hare population killed by grey- hounds in organised coursing events is less than 10 per cent; and by beagles probably under 5 per cent.
Much more serious is the depletion of hare numbers by illegal coursing, which involves gangs of men with cross-bred lurchers coming on to land without the owner's permission. The dogs (usually grey- hound or deerhound crossed with collie) are more efficient at catching hares than pure-bred greyhounds, and their owners are often so aggressive and intimidating that the only practical way to get rid of them is for the farmer to shoot his hares.
Shooting can, of course, severely reduce hare numbers in a particular area (though no one goes after big bags these days). Fol- lowing the Ground Game Act of 1880, which had the unintended effect of encour- aging tenant farmers to get rid of hares, it became necessary to pass a Hare Preserva- tion Act 12 years later. Charles Lancaster wrote in The Art of Shooting in 1889:
Hares in some parts of the country are grad- ually becoming extinct; and, in the face of the possibility of offending some of my readers, I must frankly say that I think hares should never be shot where it is so, but should be left for those who prefer the sports of beagling and coursing.
For the principal reasons for the decline of the hare population, however, one turns to Dr Stephen Tapper, director of research at the Game Conservancy Trust and a dis- tinguished mammalogist, who probably knows more about the brown hare (lepus europaeus) than anyone else in the country. Modern farming methods are in part responsible: intensive arable production means a shortage of food for hares in mid- summer and early autumn. Whereas on a mixed farm the hare could move to grass during and after harvest, on today's arable farm rotational ley grass has been replaced by break crops such as oilseed rape, which are harvested at the same time as the cere- als. The hare has also lost much of the shelter which it used to enjoy, due to the trend towards larger fields and fewer hedgerows.
The other major cause of the hare's decline is the fox. Of the hare's three main predators — fox, dog and man — the fox is unquestionably the most lethal, accounting for large numbers of leverets. Shortly before the first world war, there were around 25,000 gamekeepers in Britain; today there are no more than one tenth of that number. Without the control provided by the keeper's snare and gun, predator species multiply. The plain fact is that we accommodate too many foxes in this coun- try; for the benefit of hares, as well as chick- ens and lambs, many more need to be killed. Is Labour aware of this when it proposes the banning of hunting? To ban coursing and beagling would have a negligible effect on the hare population, but it could be severely depleted by banning foxhunting.
In spite of some alarmist reports, Dr Tap- per says that hares are not in terminal decline. But if the anti-hunters get their way, the delicate balance could be changed. We must stand up for the brave and beautiful hare which, with the length and strength of its hind legs, will so often outwit the hound.
In the meantime, the Game Conservancy Trust has shown, on a small farm in the Midlands, that with a sympathetic agricul- tural system and rigorous control of foxes and poaching, the hare population can increase tenfold in a short time. Perhaps we can look forward to the prospect of once again seeing an acre of hares.
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