WITH the traditional hare-coursing season approaching, police have warned landowners and members of the public to be on the lookout for trespassers out in the fields in pursuit of the game.

Officers announced this week that they had already started to see some incidents of coursing taking place but have called on the public to help them “catch, prevent and deter the hare coursers from coursing on Cambridgeshire land.”

Hare coursing became illegal in England in February 2005 when the Hunting Bill became law, despite opposition from country groups.

PCSO Maria Robinson said: “Hare coursers cause a lot of damage to the crops and fields, and the persons living there sometimes have to deal with males being verbally aggressive and threatening towards them.”

PCSO Robinson said that, typically, the tell-tale signs of hare coursing would include a group of men walking in a line across a field with dogs including whippets, lurchers or greyhounds.

She said they would often arrive in a field in a 4x4 style vehicle and would be collected a short time later before moving on to a new field.

She added: “The Rural Crime Team (RCT) had organised dedicated hare coursing patrols for the hare coursing season, we will have a double crewed fully marked 4x4 at both ends of the county.

“We will still be seizing vehicles, applying for ASBO’s and driving bans on as many of the coursers as we can.”

In order to help combat coursing, officers have advised landowners to block field entrances with concrete blocks or old straw bales and join up to become a Cambridgeshire Countryside Watch member at www.cambscountrysidewatch.org.uk.