Campaigners set to protest at hare coursing cup

Animal welfare protesters and hare coursing enthusiasts are expected to come face to face at the start of the annual Waterloo Cup.

The League Against Cruel Sports says it will be staging a demonstration at the three-day event.

The Waterloo Cup is known as the "Blue Riband" event of the sport and is held on Lord Leverhulme's Altcar estate, in west Lancashire.

Organisers of the hare coursing calendar claim the sport is increasingly popular with the stake expected to attract up to 10,000 spectators.

They claim the sport dates back to the ancient Egyptian Pharaohs and says there is no evidence to suggest coursing is cruel.

Supporters insist that in an average season seven out of eight coursed hares escape unharmed while those that are caught are killed both quickly and humanely.

But opponents of the Cup, cancelled last year due to the foot-and-mouth epidemic, say coursing is cruel with many hares little more than "a living rope in a tug of war between two dogs".

Douglas Batchelor, chief executive of the League, says there is "absolutely no justification in the 21st century for setting dogs on hares in the name of sport".

"The Scottish Parliament has seen fit to ban hunting with dogs, including hare coursing. It is time that Tony Blair honoured his commitments and banned it south of the border," he said.

The anti-coursing campaign has won some celebrity backers, including international footballer Jamie Redknapp and his pop star wife Louise. He says the event should "be consigned to history".

Story filed: 04:45 Tuesday 26th February 2002