LIFE FIELD COURSING Sport under fire: Is it humane?

Advocates say some people just don't understand hunting.
SACRAMENTO BEE
For sighthounds, it's fun and games.
For their owners, it's hunting without guns.
For jackrabbits, it's deadly.
For the California Assembly, it's an obscure sport that strikes a public nerve: Legislation to ban it has sparked passionate public hearings and hundreds of letters from both sides.
Welcome to "live field coursing," which involves greyhounds, whippets, salukis, borzois and other sighthounds in rural competitions that test their killing skills.
"I think most people would be horrified," said Assemblywoman Loni Hancock, a Berkeley Democrat who considers the sport inhumane.
"I don't expect everyone to understand hunting," countered Lesley Brabyn, a longtime courser. "But is it fair to say that no one can hunt?"
About the sport
From November until February, live field coursing events are held in California, many in the Central Valley.
Action begins with a simple command, "Tally ho!"
Three dogs at a time are freed to dash madly through a remote field toward a wild jackrabbit that has been flushed from its hiding place and is desperately zigzagging at breakneck speed.
Closer, closer, closer the dogs get, as the jackrabbit tires.
Finally, the kill.
In one motion, running furiously, a canine snatches the prey with a giant snap of its strong jaw and deals a fatal blow.
"It's very quick, it's instantaneous. They basically break its neck," Brabyn said.
Critics disagree, saying some of the deaths are slow and painful.
Judges evaluate the sighthounds on speed, agility, endurance, and ability to catch and kill. At stake is a ribbon -- and bragging rights.
Assembly Bill 2110
Hancock proposed Assembly Bill 2110 to ban the sport after watching TV footage of a Solano County event in which dogs played tug-of-war with a captured rabbit.
"I was shocked," Hancock said.
California prohibits cockfighting and other sports in which animals kill or injure each other, so it should ban live field coursing as well, Hancock said.
"[We] do not advocate any activity that causes an animal to suffer or be put in harm's way for the sake of human entertainment," said Alexis Raymond of United Animal Nations, a Sacramento-based animal welfare group.
Hancock and others note that England already bans open field coursing.
But opponents of AB 2110 say the measure unfairly targets a legitimate form of hunting that has existed for hundreds of years, reduces the jackrabbit population, and helps to perpetuate the natural instincts of sighthounds.
Assemblyman Jay La Suer, R-La Mesa, said nonhunters simply don't understand the sport or the "relationship between the dog and the hunt."
"This is not a situation of cruelty to animals," he said. "The bill is solving a problem that doesn't exist."
Exaggerations?
Lee Anne Norris, of Ojai, said the impacts of live coursing are exaggerated.
"Very often people come home with no catches," she said. "And when they do get a rabbit, it's used to feed either their dogs or themselves."
The California Fish and Game Commission opposes AB 2110, noting the commission is responsible for regulating hunters and should be left to hold hearings and decide the matter itself.
State law permits the use of dogs for coursing, provided that participants buy hunting licenses.
AB 2110 would make it a misdemeanor to participate in live field coursing of rabbits, hares or foxes. It passed the Assembly Public Safety Committee last month on a 4-3 vote and is pending in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
The bill targets the competition, not the killing of such prey by hunting or to manage livestock, train dogs or protect crops.