In 2024, a village in Hampshire woke up to a disturbing scene: a mound of about 20 dead animals, including rabbits, hares, pheasants, a fox, and a muntjac deer with its head severed, dumped outside a school. Blood oozed onto the streets before children's classes began. The community was baffled, questioning why such an atrocity had occurred.
Investigative Team Uncovers Dark Underworld
Husband-and-wife investigative journalists Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor, creators of the award-winning BBC podcast series Buried, began investigating. Their new 10-part podcast, Buried: Dead Rabbit, delves into the shady world of illegal bloodsports, specifically hare coursing—where dogs hunt hares to kill them, banned in the UK since 2005. They uncover links to organised crime and dangerous individuals terrorising villages across the country.
The team discovers more instances of mutilated animals: lambs strung up in public with their throats cut, and 50 dead animals deposited at a farm shop with blood smeared on windows. While some speculate satanic activity, the likely connecting factor is intimidation—threats from illegal hare hunters to instil fear in communities.
Chris Packham Joins the Investigation
Wildlife presenter and activist Chris Packham, a target of numerous attacks including having his car firebombed in 2021, teams up with Ashby and Taylor. At Sheffield DocFest, Packham described the findings as “insidious and macabre … sickening.” Asked about reprisals, he said, “They car-bombed my house—there’s not much more they can do. I’m always aggravated by injustice and if the truth needs to be told, then I need to be a conduit for that truth.” Packham joked, “I love the thrill of the chase. I should have been a hunter… Hunting nefarious humans.”
Scale and Impact of Illegal Hare Coursing
The trio reveals a grizzly underworld run by criminals, with elaborate and lucrative illegal hare coursing championships. Bets are placed on the dark web from China to the US. Innocent farmers whose fields are used are targeted, threatened, and terrorised. Taylor describes it as “mafia-esque.” More than 8,500 incidents of illegal hare coursing were reported to police in the last three years. Some farmers have become suicidal due to relentless targeting. “They flagrantly don’t care,” says Packham. “They’ve crossed that line where there is absolutely no regard for the law.”
Groups of balaclava-clad men in convoys of four-by-four vehicles break into farms and take over land. Police response is often slow or disinterested, leaving rural communities in fear. Those who challenge hunters have ended up in comas with broken legs and collapsed lungs, received rape threats, had bricks thrown through windows, and had their dogs kidnapped and skinned.
Big Money and a Trophy
Top dogs in the sport, capable of killing the most, sell for £50,000. There is a mega competition with its own trophy, the Super 8 Cup. Ashby initially thought it was a myth: “I thought the criminals were hyping it up, so I couldn’t believe it when I saw it. It was this massive cup with beautiful ornate dogs carved on it. It just struck me that, wow, this is a very organised competition in the underworld.” Taylor calls it “an emblem of the audacity of all of this. This isn’t something hidden away in street corners. They’re out there and they’re proud.”
Shifting Demographics and Police Corruption Concerns
The investigation reveals a shift in demographics: younger people from different backgrounds are getting involved, flexing on social media. Taylor notes, “People have this image of hare coursing as being quite quaint, but it’s getting much more associated with serious organised crime and violent people.” Damage to land and businesses is reported from Essex to North Yorkshire. Packham adds, “Organised crime is perceived as a very urban thing. This is a revelation that it’s taking place in the countryside.”
Concerns about police corruption arise. Ashby says, “One police and crime commissioner told us that he fears they’re now inside the police. He’s noticed that a lot of their big operations against them seem to mysteriously never quite work. He said he thinks that the police should be looking much closer at the inside. It’s Line of Duty-esque.”
Broader Implications
For Ashby, the series symbolises societal issues: “It’s the story of the growth of organised crime in the UK and our relationship with nature. We have a sense of British exceptionalism that something like the ivory trade is terrible and would never happen on these shores. But these are wide open spaces where there’s commercialisation of nature for a horrible means, which is ignored by society.” Buried: Dead Rabbit is available on BBC Sounds.
