Hare expert describes hare round-up as ‘disgraceful’

An anonymous phone-call to the offices of the League Against Cruel Sports resulted in League investigators being sent to the Six Mile Bottom estate near Newmarket, Suffolk on February 10th. The caller had alleged that hares were being captured for the Waterloo Cup. When the investigators arrived they found around a hundred men, serviced by a tea-wagon, involved in a huge hare capture exercise. Film was obtained of hares being driven into nets and of 60 to 80 hares being packed into crates and stacked inside a Landrover while another transit van was waiting to be filled with hares. The supervisor of the whole operation was Mr David Midwood, Chairman of the Waterloo Cup Committee.

The rules of coursing forbid the coursing of hares unless they have been living free on the site for at least six months, so clearly if the hares being captured at Newmarket were destined for the Waterloo Cup due in only two weeks time, the ‘Cup’ would be run in breach of the rules. The League handed the film to BBC television’s ‘Countryfile’ programme which showed it in a feature on hares and the Waterloo Cup on Sunday, 23rd February. However, Mr Midwood, and later the British Field Sports Society denied that the hares were going to Altcar, and between them at various times gave the destinations of the hares as ‘Dartmoor, North Wales, Shropshire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire and Surrey’. They claimed that the operation was conducted by ‘The Hare Conservation Society’ – a little known organisation run by a Mr W. B. K. Steadman who the League has discovered is also a member of Mr Midwood’s Waterloo Cup Committee as well as the British Field Sports Society’s Coursing Committee.

The League also handed the film of the hare round-up to Professor Stephen Harris who conducted the national hare survey for the Government’s Joint Nature Conservation Committee. It was Professor Harris’s research which revealed the 80 per cent decline in hare numbers this century and which has led to the hare being officially listed as a threatened/declining species. Professor Harris was angered by the scenes. In his report to the League he said; “The operations portrayed in the video were grim; they were likely to cause considerable stress to the animals and maximise the chance of injuries”. He added that the hares should have been covered and the noise should have been kept to an absolute minimum. He was particularly critical of the handling of a hare while it was being extracted from a net. The animal was held off the ground and the Professor said that if it had kicked it could have fractured or injured its spinal column due to the power with which hares can flex their hind legs. He also said that the boxes were only suitable for holding hares for brief periods because there was no way they could be fed or watered. He noticed that it was raining during the operation and he warned that putting wet hares into boxes in which they could not dry off would also pose a risk of fatalities. He complained that the handling of the boxed hares was ‘haphazard and showed no care of the animals’, and that the stacking of the boxes on top of each other (one on its side) was ‘disgraceful’.

Finally, Professor Harris pointed out that the time of the capture coincides with the period that females hares were either heavily pregnant or already had dependent offspring. ‘Removing hares at this time of the year will lead to young dying of starvation and a great deal of trauma to pregnant does.’

Wildlife Guardian, Issue 36 - Spring 1997