Survival, movements, home range size and dispersal of hares after coursing and/or translocation

Abstract

Hare coursing is the pursuit of a hare by dogs for sport. In recent years in Ireland, between 2,900 to 3,700 hares have been caught from the wild (under Government license) and held in captivity for up to 8 weeks. Hares are given a head start and coursed in an enclosed arena by two muzzled greyhounds where the object is not to kill the hare, but judge the dogs on their ability to turn the hare which escapes under a partition through which the dogs cannot follow. Recent licence returns suggest over 99% of hares survive and are released back into the wild. This study aimed to assess survival and behaviour of coursed hares after their release sometimes into unfamiliar territory. Forty hares were tracked using GPS-radio collars for six months after release in a factorial experimental design to test the impact of coursing and translocation on survival, movements, home range size and dispersal. Coursed and uncoursed hares did not differ in observed mortality rates, movements, home range sizes or dispersal distances after release back into the wild though fewer coursed than uncoursed hares were relocated six months after release, due to a combination of collar strap failures and radio silence. Spatial behavior was similar between the cohorts once translocated hares, which moved further and had larger home range sizes during the first four days after release, had settled. Two hares released shortly before sunset were killed in road traffic collisions during their first night. Releasing hares during daylight, preferably as early as possible, may provide time for animals to settle before darkness. Suggestions are made for potential methodological improvements such as the use of cellular (mobile phone) or satellite communication technology mounted on stouter straps to reduce failures and improve relocation rates.

Dublin Hareport: The movement ecology and airfield interactions of resident, airside hares, at an international airport

“…being one such area (Figure 1c). The home range sizes we recorded for the Irish hare population at Dublin Airport were similar to those reported elsewhere in Ireland (Caravaggi et al, 2016;Reid, 2023;Wolfe & Hayden, 1996). Hares do not inherently avoid tarmacked surfaces, however.…”

Multistage time-to-event models improve survival inference by partitioning mortality processes of tracked organisms

“…Among other applications, these tracking approaches can be used to assess the survival of individual study specimens. For example, GPS-enabled tags provide information on the location and activity of tracked specimens that can be used to infer whether and when subjects perish as indicated by the cessation of movements (migratory birds 1 ; hares 2 ; deer 3 ). While applications of GPS-enabled tags have focused on terrestrial specimens, recent studies have demonstrated the utility of popup satellite archival tags for tracking the survival fate of aquatic organisms by monitoring movement accelerations underwater (sharks 4 ; cod 5 ; halibut 6 ).…”