Brown hare populations have declined by 80% in the UK since the 1960s; agricultural intensification has removed the habitat and food diversity hares need to thrive.
Brown hares experience welfare harms from multiple agricultural practices. Mechanical harvesting kills and maims leverets. Pesticide-driven loss of wildflowers reduces nutritional diversity, weakening adults. Persecution — illegal hare coursing is ongoing despite legal bans — causes acute suffering and death. Hares startled by vehicles or dogs may run until their muscles fail in exertional myopathy. Their thin bodies are particularly vulnerable to cold and wet conditions when habitat quality is poor.