Hare coursers’ threats beat ban in Ireland; terrorize rural England

(Beth Clifton collage)

“When hare coursing is outlawed,  only outlaws will course hares.”  As they do.

DUBLIN,  Ireland;  LONDON,  U.K.––Warned Niall Collins,  agriculture minister for the Republic of Ireland,  ahead of a July 8,  2026 vote on a motion to ban hare coursing,  “If we over-regulate or ban it,  this can lead to worse practices as well.  That is something that has to be factored into this.”

Explained the Irish Times,  “In hare coursing,”  as legally practiced in Ireland,  “a hare is released and chased by muzzled dogs,  with the winning dog judged to be the one who first forced the animal to turn. Animal rights bodies say the practice terrifies the hares and is inherently cruel.”

As illegally but commonly practiced,  the dogs are not muzzled.  The winner is the owner of the dog who kills the hare.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Major Irish parties both back hare coursing

The proposed hare coursing ban was defeated,  125 votes to 24,  with all members of the Fianna Fáil party heading the governing coalition and all members of the leading minority party Sinn Fein voting against it.

Reported the Irish Times,  “The [proposed] legislation was introduced by People Before Profit delegate Paul Murphy and aimed to prohibit the coursing of hares with dogs by amending the Wildlife Act 1976 and the Animal Health & Welfare Act 2013.

“The Social Democrats,  Labour,  Charles Ward of the 100% Redress Party,  and independent Paul Gogarty also supported the bill to ban coursing.”

Bill author Murphy challenged Niall Collins to produce a report that Collins and other hare coursing defenders have repeatedly cited since 2022,  alleging that an “independent economic analysis estimated that coursing contributes approximately €70.7 million annually to the Irish economy.”

Apparently no one has ever actually seen the purported report or the highly questionable data said to be in it.

(Beth Clifton collage)

“Gates cut open with an angle grinder”

Meanwhile,  the “worse practices” threatened by Niall Collins as a possibility if hare coursing is banned were brought to light on July 25,  2026,  as practiced in England since hare coursing was banned there in 2005,  by BBC reporters Dan Ashby,  Lucy Taylor,  and Joseph Lee.

In a broadcast entitled “Gangs, violence and dumped dead animals:  The hidden world of illegal hare hunts,”  Ashby,  Taylor,  and Lee recounted how Cambridgeshire farmer Mathew Latta in in January 2005 saw his property overrun by “a convoy of more than a dozen 4x4s.  His iron gates were cut open with an angle grinder and concrete blocks were shifted out of the way to clear the convoy’s path.

“The vehicles drove right over his fields at speed,”  Ashby,  Taylor,  and Lee narrated,  “tearing up the crops and skirting the fence by the family’s garden.  Then more than 70 people got out of the vehicles,  men dressed in military fatigues and balaclavas,  cheering and playing music.

“Dogs were brought out on leads and began to hunt hares.

(Beth Clifton collage)

“Trapped in their home”

“Latta and his family were trapped in their home.  They kept calling the police,  but nobody came.

“More than three hours later,”  Ashby,  Taylor,  and Lee detailed,  “the bloodsport was finally over and the crowd dispersed.  They left behind four cars,  one of them a burnt-out wreck.  It emerged that earlier in the day the convoy had rampaged through an area 20 miles long,  forcing other cars off the road and even robbing a petrol station.

“This,”  Ashby,  Taylor,  and Lee declared,  “is the modern reality of hare coursing,”  which “went underground after it was banned,”  becoming a violent branch of organized crime.

Ashby,  Taylor,  and Lee “began investigating this underworld,”  they said,  “after the bodies of dead hares and other animals were mysteriously dumped in two picturesque Hampshire villages in 2024.

(Beth Clifton collage)

9,000 reports in three years

“In Awbridge,”  Ashby,  Taylor,  and Lee recalled,  “more than 20 carcasses – mostly hares and rabbits, along with a muntjac deer with a severed head – were strewn outside a primary school.

“About seven miles north,  in Broughton, about 50 hares were scattered near the entrance of the village’s community shop,  with blood smeared on the doors and a dead barn owl and kestrel tied to the door handles.”

What Ashby,  Taylor,  and Lee found,  they summarized,  “was a hidden world of highly organized illegal bloodsport,  with trophies,  big money prizes,  valuable hunting dogs,  and sometimes even international gambling,  all kept secret by intimidation and violence.

“There have been almost 9,000 reports of hare coursing across the United Kingdom in the past three years,  according to police responses to Freedom of Information Act requests by the BBC,”  Ashby,  Taylor,  and Lee learned.

(South Yorkshire police photo)

“Links to other forms of organized crime”

“Having been caught out,”  after Latta made his experience and that of his family public,  the Cambridge Constabulary eventually arrested more than 40 alleged participants in the January 2025 hare coursing event,   “charging 25,  several of whom have now been convicted,”  Ashby,  Taylor,  and Lee mentioned.

But the so-called “Super 8 Cup champion lurcher of 2025” went on to sell for £55,000,  or about $73,000 in U.S. dollars,  Ashby,  Taylor,  and Lee reported.

“We were told the Super 8 Cup prize was about £50,000,”  Ashby,  Taylor,  and Lee said, “while the entry fee for the competition was £1,000.

“Chief inspector Kevin Lacks-Kelly,  head of the U.K. National Wildlife Crime Unit,  tells the BBC that money also flowed into the illegal sport through livestreams for gamblers in China on one or two occasions.  But he says the gangs in the U.K. do not need overseas bets to fund their illicit hobby.”

Lacks-Kelly added that 22 of the 27 “worst offenders for hare coursing” have known links to other forms of organized crime.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Gamekeeper run over & badly injured

Polling members of the Country Land & Business Association, representing 30,000 rural landowners and businesses in England and Wales,  the BBC received testimony from “about 50” that “their land or property had been damaged,”  of whom 35 mentioned that animal remains had been deliberately left on their land,  while 29 “said they had been threatened with violence.

National Gamekeepers’ Organization spokesperson Tim Weston described how “One gamekeeper was run over and badly injured when he tried to confront hare coursers on land he managed,”  suffering two broken legs,  a fractured pelvis,  and ruptured lungs,”  Ashby,  Taylor,  and Lee paraphrased.

Police elsewhere in rural southern England are combatting similar land invasions by hare coursing gangs.

(Beth Clifton collage)

“Seven men charged”

Reported Jasmine Ketibuah-Foley for the BBC on April 26,  2026,  “Seven men have been charged with hare coursing offences after dead hares,  lurchers,  and suspected poaching equipment were found in vehicles,”  near Ludgershall in Wiltshire,  west of London.

“One of the vehicles was stopped following a pursuit in Hampshire,”  Ketibuah-Foley recounted,  “while another was found abandoned,  police said.”

The seven suspects,  all men,  ranged in age from 18 to 27.

Beth & Merritt Clifton.

“We are making Essex a hostile environment for hare coursers,”  declared Essex Police superintendent Darren Deex,  after a July 9,  2025 public demonstration of tactics and resources used to fight hare coursing and other forms of rural crime.

The worst of the hare coursing season,  however,  “which starts after crops have been harvested and fields are left bare,”  Deex explained,  is still ahead.

(See Bad Hare Days,  by John Fitzgerald.)

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