Controversy
As long ago as 1516, Thomas More wrote in Utopia that,
Thou shouldst rather be moved with pity to see a silly innocent hare murdered of a dog, the weak of the stronger, the fearful of the fierce, the innocent of the cruel and unmerciful. Therefore, all this exercise of hunting is a thing unworthy to be used of free men.
Coursing has long sparked opposition from activists concerned about animal welfare. In 1892, Lady Florence Dixie criticised hare coursing as an "aggravated form of torture" and the League Against Cruel Sports was established in 1924 to campaign against rabbit coursing on Morden Common and continues to believe that it is wrong to expose animals to the risk of injury or death for human entertainment. The Waterloo Cup became a centrepiece of the campaign against coursing in the UK. In opposition, coursing has long enjoyed the fame of being known as "the noblest of field sports" precisely because the death of the hare is not the aim of the sport. Under most regulated forms of coursing only two hounds pursue the hare, the dogs competing against each other for a short time, and allowing the hare a significant chance of escape.
Read more about this topic: Hare Coursing
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