NORTHERN IRELAND is in danger of losing its hare population unless farming practices change, a study which involved fitting the animals with radio transmitters has shown.
The Queen’s University study monitored two dozen hares in south Armagh by electronic surveillance for a year. It found most of the seven who died were killed by machinery during silage harvesting time, when the hares assumed the long grass would provide shelter for their leverets.
Dr Neil Reid, Quercus Centre manager at the school of biological sciences, who led the research, said hares required an intricate patchwork of good-quality grassland for feeding, as well as tall uneven vegetation such as rushes, for hiding and sleeping.
However the use of silage fields at peak breeding time had created an ecological trap. The latest figures indicated a population of only 27,400 in Northern Ireland.
Dr Reid said a change in strategy was now needed, for which farmers could be paid, such as mowing meadows from the centre outwards, for postponing harvesting until after July 1st and for maintaining rushy field margins.
