Although not endangered, hares are at risk from modern farming methods like machinery and pesticides. They are also the only game species with no closed season, so frequently hunted through the year. There is presently a Bill going through Parliament, to change this.
As for all wildlife, the best way to help hares is to live a simple sustainable life, trying to support local organic farmers that protect wildlife corridors (over intensive farmers).
League Against Cruel Sports runs the campaign against hunting, coursing and poaching of hares. Before the hunting ban for England and Wales, one in three hunts was for hares.
Hare Preservation Trust and others are also calling for a ban on snares, which cause great suffering to any creatures that get trapped in them.
If you are concerned for a baby hare, watch closely as most will have mothers who will return to feed them at dusk. If you need advice, contact Hare Preservation Trust or your local wildlife rescue.
How Farmers Can Help Wild Hares
Farm Wildlife has information for farmers to protect hare habitats by creating field boundaries and habitats for seeds and flowers. Leave undisturbed cover for raising leverets, and some areas of grass uncut and un-grazed for hiding (and to escape from machinery).
The Hare Preservation Trust says to break up blocks of cereal, and provide more grazing grass on arable runs. Also run wide strips of grass on open fields (or have pasture patches).
If making silage, cut the field from centre outward, so hares can escape. And leave ploughed or rough-cultivated areas left so hares can sleep. Leave 6 metre uncultivated margins around arable fields, and leave cereal stubbles over winter.
A Memoir of Helping a Wild Leveret
Raising Hare is the touching story of a political advisor who left the city, to return to her childhood countryside home. And ended up raising a baby hare (leveret) that she found, alone and injured. She bottle-fed it, and watched the hare ‘drum on her duvet cover’ for attention. The little hare would even run in from the field, to snooze in her house, for hours on end.
But compelled to give this brave little creature a chance of survival, she knows the hare will have to return to live in the wild. This story of trust and hope, is where we least expect it.
I savoured every carefully chosen and perfectly polished word, and I cared so deeply about Hare that I found myself holding my breath. More than a wildlife memoir, it’s a philosophical masterpiece, on our place as human beings in nature. Clare Balding
This is a great and important tale for our times. I am so pleased Chloe told us about raising Hare. I will not forget it, and nor will anyone who reads it. Michael Morpurgo
England’s brown hares live in fields (the only time you’ll likely see them if not a farmer, is from a train window). Native to Asia, hares have lived in England since Roman times.
Larger than rabbits with bigger longer ears (with black tips), hares live above ground (not in burrow) and rest in ‘forms’ (little shallow burrows). They run in a zig-zag direction at fast speeds to escape (mostly foxes) trying to eat them.
Mostly nocturnal, hares tend to live alone, when not breeding. If you see two ‘boxing hares’, this is usually a female hare fighting off a male that she’s not interested in!
Most hares only live a few years, though the females may have a few litters each year (weaned within weeks). Due to cereals, hares are more common in Eastern England, and quite rare in southwest England.
Also read The Secret Life of the Mountain Hare, about Scottish hares in the uplands. These shy charming creatures (that turn white in winter to match their landscape) are profiled by a writer and wildlife photographer.