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4.1 Introduction

1. Although hare shooting does not involve dogs and therefore would not be subject to any proposed hunting ban, it does represent the most significant form of hare culling in the countryside and the method most frequently adopted by farmers in arable areas as a means of pest control.
2. Hares shot on hare shoots are however treated as game and provided the shoot is undertaken before March 1^st it is usually sold to a game dealer who markets the hares in Britain or in Europe. February is the most common month for organised hare shoots being after the end of the gamebird shooting season, and at a time when most hares are feeding on winter cereals¹.
3. Hare shoots are normally undertaken over the whole farm area and sometimes smaller farms may combine to take in a wider area of ground. The day is organised as a series of drives, and unlike gamebird shoots, there is no separation between beaters and guns. Most participants (usually 20-40 people) carry guns and will be involved in either standing or walking lines during the course of the day. Separate areas of the farm are surrounded and the drives move inwards making a tighter area. Hares are shot either as they flush running forward or are taken as they break out through one of the lines of guns.
4. Between 1988 and 1991 we visited four estates which had organised hare shoots and counted the hares before and after the shooting day. One estate was visited twice in two separate years.
5. The Game Conservancy Trust studies on the brown have been funded principally by the Natural Environment Research Council and The British Field Sports Society (now the Countryside Alliance).

4.2. Methods

1. The four farmland estates where we undertook this work were all managed as game shoots and gamekeepers were employed for rearing game, predator control and to deter poaching. All four were arable farms and ranged in size from 262 hectares (Micheldever) to 1,165 hectares (Basingstoke).
2. Each estate was visited before and after each hare shoot and hare counts were made using the spotlight night counting method described previously (Coursing 2.2.a) and in the literature in Barnes and Tapper² and Stoate and Tapper³.
3. The number of hares killed at the end of the shoot was recorded by the game keeper and we have taken this recorded bag to be the number of hares killed.

4.3 Results

1. Results of our counts are summarised below (see Table). Hare numbers are shown as an estimated density (number of hares per 100 hectares of ground - N/km2) before shooting and as estimated populations over the whole of the estate before and after shooting. These estimates are expressed as upper and lower limits and based on 95% confidence intervals around the calculated mean. The population change is the calculated difference between the two counts and the number recorded killed is the size of the bag reported by the gamekeeper and recorded in the gamebook for that day.

2. The average density of the hare populations on these farms was 29.4 hares per 100 hectares.
3. The size of the cull ranged from 40% to nearly 70% of the population. The average was nearly 50%.
4. Since the number killed is estimated from the size of the bag i.e. the number of dead animals returned to the game larder at the end of the day, there remains the possibility that further wounded animals might not have been picked up but have died later. Although this may happen on occasion it evidently does not occur on a large scale since the recorded kill is close to or larger than the estimated change in the population.

4.4 Discussion and conclusions about hare shooting

1. The estimated culls of hares on hare shoots are typically very high and much more that would be considered appropriate for a purely game species⁴ and the sustainability of such culling has been questioned⁵. In particular it is suggested large numbers of hares immigrate onto these estates only to be shot in a subsequent year. Thus it is argued that hare shoots become what are termed ‘population sinks’ or places where animals move to but suffer very high levels of mortality.
2. Although some immigration does occur following a shoot we would note that on most places where shooting occurs hares numbers are higher even after shooting than they are on average farmland found by Hutchings and Harris⁵.
3. In fact most areas that are shot are places which are highly suited to hare breeding and other mortality (e.g. predation) is kept low. These places are in fact on balance population "sources" not "sinks".
4. In conclusion, hare shoots are mainly found on farms where high populations of hares are maintained because of suitable arable farming, the conservation of a range of habitats, and the presence of a gamekeeper who reduces levels of hare predators. Hare shooting does significantly reduce hare numbers which is the desired aim, as most shoots are mainly conducted to reduce crop damage.

  References

1. TAPPER, S.C., & BARNES, R.F.W. (1986) Influence of farming practice on the ecology of the Brown hare (Lepus europaeus). Journal of Applied Ecology, 23, 39-52.

2. BARNES, R.F.W., & TAPPER, S.C. (1985) A method for counting hares by spotlight. Journal of Zoology, London, 206 (2), 273-6.

3. STOATE, C., & TAPPER, S.C. (1993) The impact of three hunting methods on brown hare (Lepus europaeus) populations in Britain. Gibier Faune Sauvage, 10, 229-40.

4. HUDSON, P.J. (1985) Harvesting red grouse in the north of England. In: Game Harvest Management. Eds S.L. Beason & S.F. Roberson. Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Inst., Kingsville, Texas. 319-26.

5. HUTCHINGS, M.R., & HARRIS, S. (1996) The current status of the brown hare (Lepus europaeus) in Britain. Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Peterborough.

Date uploaded to site: 29 February 2000