'Blood Sport' Popular in California, but Lawmaker Calling for Ban

Feb. 7, 2006 — -- In the San Francisco Bay Area recently, a group of greyhound owners gathered at a restaurant before the sun came up to prepare for a day of hunting.

They wouldn't be doing the hunting themselves -- their animals would, in a blood sport called coursing, in which dogs chase and kill jack rabbits for points.

Coursing has been banned in several states and also in England. Enthusiasts of the sport defend it as simply another form of hunting, but animal rights activists call it barbaric, and one California assemblywoman has vowed to pass legislation to ban it.

Frank Morales, a computer analyst for the San Francisco school district, is vice president of the National Open Field Coursing Association, founded in 1964. Morales says coursing is actually more humane to the rabbits than shooting them with shotguns.

"There's a lot less chance of a hare being injured and having to limp off somewhere," Morales said. "They are either caught or they get away, whereas people with shotguns often wound animals and leave them out there."

At the restaurant, the greyhound owners drew the order in which their dogs would compete. Then they drove their trailers to a farm field just off Interstate 80, and the heats began.

The dogs raced three at a time, while their owners walked at the front. The rest of the owners and spectators formed a straight line to the rear and tried to flush out jack rabbits from the woods. When a rabbit bolted into the open, the handlers released their dogs after the hunt master called, "tally-ho!"

The dogs get points for how aggressively they pursue the rabbit, for each time they make it turn and for killing it.

"It's a hundred-point maximum system, and there's up to 25 points for speed, agility and endurance," said Morales.

A few times, the rabbit got away -- through a fence or into a drainage pipe. But most of the time the rabbit died -- and usually a slow, painful death. One tug of war between dog and rabbit went on for a minute and 45 seconds.