Search

Simple Summary: Hare coursing is a widespread and controversial activity in the Republic of Ireland in which the speed and agility of greyhounds are measured against that of a hare. Every year, several thousands of hares are taken from the wild by coursing clubs under licenses issued by the National Parks and Wildlife Service. While the majority are returned to the wild at the end of the coursing season, no research has been done on the impact of hare coursing on the welfare of individual hares. Despite greyhounds in licensed coursing events being muzzled since 1993, hares may be pinned to the ground by the dogs and killed or so severely injured that they have to be euthanized by a veterinary practitioner. In addition to animal welfare concerns, the recent emergence in Ireland of rabbit haemorrhagic disease (RHD2) has led to calls for licensed hare coursing to be prohibited on animal welfare, disease control, conservation and ethical grounds. In this paper, publicly available information provided by licensed hare coursing clubs on the number of hares captured, used for coursing events, killed or injured and the percentage returned to the wild, over four coursing seasons is reviewed. A reported 19,402 hares were taken from the wild over the four coursing seasons. Whilst 19,080 hares (98%) were returned to the wild, 75 were killed by greyhounds or had to be euthanized due to their injuries. Policy makers should take animal welfare, disease control, conservation, ethics and public opinion into account and fund independent research where gaps in knowledge are identified. Hare coursing is legal in the Republic of Ireland under licenses issued to coursing clubs but is illegal in other jurisdictions in the British Isles including Northern Ireland. Supporters of coursing maintain that coursing contributes to the conservation of the hare whilst opponents claim that coursing is cruel and the welfare of the hares is compromised. However, while the contribution of coursing to conservation has been considered, the impact of coursing on hare welfare has not been investigated. This paper reviews publicly available information from licensed hare coursing clubs over four coursing seasons, including the number of hares taken from the wild, numbers coursed, and numbers pinned to the ground by dogs, killed or injured during coursing events. In total, 19,402 hares were taken from the wild—98% of which were subsequently released back to the wild at the end of the coursing season. Almost 600 hares were pinned by greyhounds during coursing events and 75 were either killed or had to be euthanized as a result of their injuries. While the number of hares killed or injured is relatively small compared to the number caught, the welfare of all captured hares will have been compromised and has not been investigated. Policy makers must fill this knowledge gap or take a precautionary approach and further regulate or indeed prohibit the capture of hares which are otherwise fully protected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: The domestic cat, Felis catus, is often cross-bred with other species in the cat family to produce hybrid or 'designer' cats that are sought by people as pets. However, hybrid cats are often surrendered to wildlife shelters, or released, which leads to concern that they may establish free-roaming populations and damage native wildlife. In 2008, the Australian government rejected an application, on precautionary grounds, to import savannah cats (hybrids of the domestic cat and serval Leptailurus serval) into the country. We review the limited information informing this decision and then present a framework that identifies the native mammal species likely to have been most at risk of predation from savannah cats if importation and establishment had occurred. Assuming that savannah cats hunt similar prey to those that are hunted by both parent species, we estimate that 91% of Australia's extant terrestrial mammal fauna would likely face some risk of predation from savannah cats, including 93% of non-volant mammal species that have threatened conservation status. The framework results strongly validate the decision to ban savannah cats from Australia. We suggest that our framework approach could be adapted to assess the likely risks that are posed by the arrival of other hybrid cats or hybrids of other animals. Hybrid cats—created by crossing different species within the family Felidae—are popular pets, but they could potentially threaten native species if they escape and establish free-roaming populations. To forestall this possibility, the Australian government imposed a specific ban on importation of the savannah cat, a hybrid created by crossing the domestic cat Felis catus and serval Leptailurus serval, in 2008. We develop a decision–framework that identifies those species of non-volant native mammals in Australia that would likely have been susceptible to predation by savannah cats if importation and establishment had occurred. We assumed that savannah cats would hunt ecologically similar prey to those that are depredated by both the domestic cat and the serval, and categorised native mammals as having different levels of susceptibility to predation by savannah cats based on their size, habitat range, and behaviour. Using this framework, we assessed savannah cats as likely to add at least 28 extant native mammal species to the 168 that are known already to be susceptible to predation by the domestic cat, posing a risk to 91% of Australia's extant non-volant terrestrial mammal species (n = 216) and to 93% of threatened mammal species. The framework could be generalised to assess risks from any other hybrid taxa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]