Chasing and dispatching any mammal with dogs is not only the best form and least harmful form of control, as opposed to other methods, it is also the most selective.
I cannot think of a purer way of controlling hares than to hunt them with dogs, which are descended from one of the hare's principal natural predators, the wolf.
Another sad example of how far removed from nature people are these days. Hunting is the ecological choice, the ethical one - and nature's recipe for healthy populations.
As a zoologist and ethologist with a lifelong interest in the behavior and ecology of predators and their prey, I find the prohibition indefensible. Coursing actually does benefit hare populations, not only in the sense of preventing other nastier things from happening to the hares, but also more directly in weeding out the sick, the slow and the stupid from the population, in the same way as natural predators (now sadly diminished) do. The most healthy, vigorous and flourishing hare populations I have seen (in a career spanning Europe, Africa, the Middle East and North America) have been those which were regularly coursed.
If you wish to promote hare conservation, promote coursing and falconry - and no, this is not a paradox or contradictory. It is just applied ecology - and common sense.
Coursing conserves the hare population. Coursing, above all, does not set out with the intention of killing hares. It is the agility and speed of the dogs which is compared.
Sirs bureaucrats and "green". Engage better in economy and struggle against terrorism! Do not try to climb there where you of nothing think. You "гумманизм" to an animal false also brings only harm even a animal. It to you is spoken by the professional zoologist.
