Mountain hares face population pressures from habitat management, disease, and deliberate culling on some grouse moors. Conservation and welfare concerns intersect in complex ways in upland management debates.
Mountain hare culling welfare involves the intersection of individual animal suffering, population welfare, and ecosystem management debate. Organized drives that kill hundreds of hares in a day represent acute welfare events that, regardless of their management justification, cause death and potential wounding. The welfare case for restricting or eliminating culling rests on both the individual welfare harm and the contested scientific case for its effectiveness. Alternative tick management approaches including acaricide treatment of deer and heather burning management can reduce tick loads without hare mortality. Protecting native mammal welfare while managing ecologically complex disease dynamics requires evidence-based policy that takes welfare seriously.