BROWN HARE POPULATIONS AT ORFORD NESS
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THE BROWN HARE POPULATION AT ORFORD NESS IN JUNE 2005 AND 2006 STUART WARRINGTON AND DAVID CORMACK The Brown Hare (Lepus europaeus Linnaeus) originated from the steppes of central Asia and they probably spread west across Europe as forest was cleared for farming in the Neolithic period. They did not appear in Britain until the late bronze age (Tapper & Parsons, 1984). The Brown Hare is a familiar site in the fields of East Anglia, but there are concerns about the long-term trends in their population, especially in the north and west of Britain. Hutchings and Harris (1996) examined various sources of records, including game bag returns, and reported that there appeared to be a widespread steady decline in Brown Hare numbers from the 1960s, but that numbers were more stable since the 1980s. However, the 1980s population was estimated to be under 20% of that present 100 years ago. This decline since the late 1880s was also noted by G. T. Rope, in the Victoria County History of Suffolk, who wrote in 1911 that Brown Hares were ‘common but not so abundant as they were 30 or 40 years ago.’ All the evidence points to the main factors in the population decline being the changes to the pattern of landscape management, especially the loss of rotational farming and the moves towards larger fields and less crop diversity (Game Conservancy, 2004). Hutchings and Harris (1996) co-ordinated a survey of Brown Hares in the winters of 1991/92 and 1992/93, based on volunteers carrying out a walk-over survey of several hundred one kilometre squares spread across Britain. In summary, they found that predominately arable areas held the highest hare densities with an average 6 per km2. Pastoral areas had an average density of 3·5 per km2. The hares showed a preference for habitats of winter cereals, stubble and ploughed fields, followed by unimproved grasslands and shortterm grassland leys. The counties of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk were the stronghold of the Brown Hare, with nearly 20% of the UK population in just 5·1% of the UK land area. The total British population of Brown Hares was estimated to be between 817,500 and 1,250,000. Due to the decline in Brown Hare numbers, the species was made a priority for conservation action in the first round of Species Action Plans (UK BAP, 2001). The main factors causing the species decline were listed as the loss of habitat diversity in the agricultural landscape, conversion of grassland to arable, and changes in cropping regimes, especially the move to winter cereals and silage. The UK action plan targets were to maintain existing populations and aim to double spring numbers by 2010. The local Suffolk Biodiversity Action Plan also included Brown Hare as a target species (Suffolk BAP, 2003). Brown Hares have been frequently observed at Orford Ness since the National Trust took over the site in 1993. They have been seen all over the site, from the grazing marshes to the vegetated shingle and along the shingle spit, however, it was not known what the current population size might be. There had been a previous, and more detailed, study of Brown Hares on
Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 42 (2006)