Hares: Conservation

(asked on 23rd June 2025) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of banning the shooting of hares in their breeding season.


Answered by
Daniel Zeichner Portrait
Daniel Zeichner
Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This question was answered on 21st July 2025

The Government considers the need for a close season for hares is justified more by animal welfare concerns than biodiversity and species conservation. In short, a close season should reduce the number of adult hares being shot in the breeding season, which runs from February to October, meaning that fewer leverets (infant hares) are left motherless and vulnerable to starvation and predation. A close season is also consistent with Natural England's advice on wildlife management that controlling species in their peak breeding season should be avoided unless genuinely essential and unavoidable. Defra Ministers therefore support the ambition to introduce a close season for hares in England and are considering how this can be brought forward.

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