We should value our native hares much more than we do

COUNTRY FILE

AT the sight of the hare my mind went back to the first time I saw one close at hand. I was just a child when my father brought that long, limp body back from the fields. He had never been a shooting man, but for some reason had acquired a rifle. I already saw him kill a crow with it, and had no doubt he would provide an endless supply of wild animals for the kitchen.

But then came the hare. When he held it by the back feet its ears reached the ground and when he held it by the ears the feet were dragging.

As hares go, it was up there with the best. The fur was indescribably soft. The eyes were round, even in death. They were of such a deep, deep brown colour I thought there must be no end to the creature, that still it must course through some wild spirit country even if its days within our fields were over.

And even then I thought about those hare-less fields, where life had been and now was no more.

I still wanted to eat it, to have it roasted in the oven or broiled or as tender steaks fried. In the end it was hung in the shed until it started to smell, at which time it went up the road and into the ditch, where a hungry fox likely found what was left.

What a waste. Ever after, I have watched for hares and marveled at the way they run, even from my promise to do no harm.

I saw one today, in a field just turning green after having been shorn by the silage man. The hare sat there, oblivious at first to my presence. Wanting to get close enough to take a photograph, I snuck along a long line of bushes that had once constituted a hedge.

The animal saw me, of course. At first it sat there, bolt upright with those long ears held slightly askew. Then it was away, like the proverbial racehorse. All I could do was watch until it disappeared into the woods from which I had recently emerged.

I was happy to see this hare, for they seem to be scarce of late. There was a time I would see them every week, but then I would be out fishing every week. Now I go less often and see correspondingly less wildlife. Still, they seem scarce.

The population of Irish hares in thought to be in the region of a quarter of a million individuals. These are proper Irish hares that occur only in this country and nowhere else in the world, not the other, ubiquitous brown hare that lives throughout the rest of Europe and even further afield.

We should value our native hares more. Aren't there enough pressures on the poor things already, what with intensive agriculture restricting their movements and that recently arrived hemorrhagic disease that afflicts rabbits and hares alike?

And yet the so-called sport of hare coursing remains. What sport could there possibly be in setting a pair of greyhounds on the trail of a much smaller animal, even if this does have greater speed and agility than almost any dog?

Hares are still trapped and kept in captivity until such time as they are needed for chasing. After being transported to the coursing field and worried half to death they might, if they are lucky, escape with their terrified lives.

Just as the sight of a hare reminds me of the one my father shot, so the sight of an empty field brings back memories of that loss. It feels like time we did things differently.