Despite the Hunting Act 2004 banning hare coursing in England and Wales, illegal coursing remains widespread, causing significant welfare harm to hares and requiring continued enforcement effort.
Hare coursing causes acute welfare suffering: hares are chased at high speed, frequently caught and killed by dogs, or escape severely injured. The terror of being pursued by a predator is an acute stressor. Coursed hares that escape may die later from injuries, exhaustion, or stress-induced conditions. The organised criminal nature of modern illegal coursing means it occurs repeatedly on the same land throughout the coursing season, with aggregated welfare harm across multiple hares. The increased penalties introduced in 2022 have enabled more robust prosecution and are credited by police forces with some deterrence. Civil noise injunctions and better landowner legal tools are complementary to criminal enforcement.