General News
7 December, 2024
Barry's Corner
Hare numbers seem to be on an upward trend over the past couple of years.
Hares look a bit like large rabbits but they have larger hind legs and longer ears and they love finding food in a garden and they are not standard grey as rabbits.
A hare has flecks of white throughout the fur colour.
Hares love teasing dogs and will jump up in front of a dog and lope away once the dog gets closer the hare finds another gear and streaks away, leaving the dog eating dust.
There have been plagues of hares in the past, and they are a most unhelpful pest to have around.
These animals will strip all the green bark up to half a metre high overnight and completely ruin vegetables in a short time.
Too many pest hares can cause real crop damage and the stories handed down over the decades tells about the hare drives to kill as many as possible.
It can be a bit hard to see any number of hares because they tend to move around during the night or during heavily overcast daylight hours. They were brought to Australia in the late gold mine era and soon made themselves unpopular. The idea was to provide a sport for the coursing clubs around the country as they did in the old mother country. Nowadays spotlighting is the closest to coursing.
Young hares are called leveretes and are born in small numbers and do not hang around the family for long and become fully independent within a few weeks.