I've been an active anti-bloodsports campaigner for nearly 30 years.
The type of hare-coursing described in the BBC report is practised by people trespassing on other's land. Before the Hunting Act 2005, this was, and can still be, dealt with by police and courts under poaching and criminal trespass legislation. The people who do this are frequently violent criminals and their associates, so nobody should approach them if they see this happening. Phone 999.
No less cruel was the previously legal hare-coursing practised at organised events, notably the annual Waterloo Cup, at which crowds of up to 10,000 used to assemble. I attended it once, as part of a protest. It was utterly ghastly. The crowds were a strange mix of the obviously well-heeled and excuse the expression, underclass scum, many of whom were drunk. A policeman on duty there said to me that, if he could arrest everyone present, crime in Liverpool [the nearest big city] would be virtually eliminated overnight.
It is true that the hares escaped the greyhounds more often than not, but when they were caught a 'tug-of-war' would often ensue between the two hounds, with the screaming hare literally being ripped apart. This was what really got the crowds excited.
The hares used at the Waterloo Cup were mostly imported from other parts of the country. Caught in netting, they reportedly suffered up to 50% mortality just from capture and transport.
Because such events are confined to one location, and difficult to organise and hold without it being obvious, it does appear that the Hunting Act has been pretty successful in stopping them.
Unfortunately, this is about the only form of the cruel and barbaric practice of hunting wild mammals with dogs where the Act has succeeded. Fox, deer, mink and hare hunting continue, because of weak wording and loopholes in the Act and lack of enforcement. The principal way hunters are circumventing the ban is by pretending to be hunting a scent trail. But, where they bother with actually creating a trail at all, fox hunts are using ones made of actual fox scent and trailing them through areas known to be inhabited by foxes. The chases and kills that inevitably result are then blamed on 'accidents'.
Hare hunters claim to be hunting rabbits [not made illegal, for various reasons, under the Act] if challenged and hares caught are, similarly, 'accidents'. Hare hunting, generally using beagles [about 70 packs in the UK] is arguably even crueller than hare coursing. The hare, reluctant to leave its known environment or seek underground refuge, is chased by the pack for anything up to 90 minutes before being caught and torn to pieces.
Deer are still being hunted with hounds in Devon and Somerset, but using a ludicrous exemption that allows this for purposes of 'observation and study'.
All this is still happening for nothing more than the amusement of those concerned. These 'sports' do not, and never have had, anything to do with genuine pest control and their proponents never claimed they did - until they started to come under severe public censure for indulging in them.
It is obvious that the Hunting Act needs strengthening. Labour and the Lib-Dems will oppose repeal, but are reluctant to revisit the Act. The organisation I'm part of, Protect Our Wild Animals [POWA.
www.powa.org.uk] is asking them to commit to strengthening.
But David Cameron [a hunter and shooter himself], the Conservative leader, is a bosom buddy of the bloodsports fraternity and his Environment spokesman, Nick Herbert, is a former avid hare hunter. They have pledged that, if the Conservatives are elected, they will repeal the Hunting Act, so that their friends can carry on their cruel pastimes completely unfettered by the law. So in thrall to the Countryside Alliance [formerly the British Field Sports Society] do they seem to be that when they recently said this repeal would be dealt with by a Private Members Bill, the howls of protest from the hunters immediately made them switch back to their original promise to do it via a Government Bill.
Incidentally, they also favour mass badger killing, because of that animals supposed role in spreading bovine TB.