A snowshoe hare lives down our tree-shrouded road where the track narrows between dense woods. Also known as the varying hare, the snowshoe hare is cousin to both the smaller southern cottontail rabbit and the much larger western jackrabbit. Snowshoe hares up here survive only a few years in the wild, so the one I see today may be a multi-generational descendant of the one I first saw years ago.
The secretive creature takes its name from oversized hind feet thickly padded with stiff, insulating hair. When long muscular legs launch it in great leaps, the hare’s splayed toes and long, furry soles distribute the animal’s three- to four-pound weight over the snow like a snowshoe. Most pursuing predators sink in.
Our neighborhood hare favors brushy groves of young spruce, fir, cedar, and white pine. It frequents a secluded home ground off to one side of an old skidder trail, from which it watches what is going on. Willow, aspen, birch, and sumac provide winter browse, and in summer, everything between our house and the barn (grass, dandelions, clover, raspberry, and blackberry shoots) is cropped and voraciously consumed.
Snowshoe hares spend daylight hours quietly, hunkered down in their home spots within thickets or tucked away inside hollow logs and burrows vacated by other animals. They know every bit of nearby terrain for nighttime foraging and easily follow a confusing maze of worn-down trails along which they flee if predators appear. Although zigzagging through brush and a nocturnal habit keeps them safe much of the time, a third of their population eventually falls victim to avian and mammalian carnivores.
Barred owls and great horned owls swoop down on silent wings, while on the ground, coyotes, foxes, weasels, and fishers pursue snowshoe hares more with cunning than speed. Bobcats are especially dangerous, for their long legs and broad, padded paws allow successful pursuit of fleeing hares even in deep snow. Several winters, I’ve found paw prints of this handsome woodland cat in hare habitat.
The long, mobile ears of a snowshoe hare are keenly tuned to forest sounds, and if danger threatens in daylight, the camouflaged animal crouches motionless until the hunter has passed. The hare’s coat – brown in summer, white in winter – affords almost perfect visual protection from predators.
But if detected, a hare springs with great leaps as it crosses open clearings. Observers say it doesn’t hesitate if it comes to water but swims powerfully to the other side, kicking rhythmically with strong hind legs.
In late winter and early spring, the hares’ woodland trails are racetracks as male pursues female, catches her, mates, and dashes off to start the process over again with another. Such preoccupation is when predators get lucky – and we humans may momentarily witness the chase.
Home range for a female is relatively small, just a few acres of forest interspersed with protective, bushy thickets. Generation after generation of females remains more or less in place, but far-ranging males seek additional females in adjacent territories.
.Like their rabbit relatives, snowshoe hares are prolific breeders with a dozen or more offspring produced in a year’s time. The furry youngsters, weighing only a couple of ounces, are immediately alert, and within a week are out sampling grass, herbs, and fer Not yet accomplished speedsters, they’re vulnerable, and only the lucky ones grow to adulthood.
Every winter I find tracks in the snow of these long-limbed nocturnal neighbors but only occasionally see the animals themselves. Peaceful hops show up at one-foot intervals while emergency leaps, with the hind footprints thrust well out in front of the smaller front prints, may span six feet or more. I follow the tracks for a while, but evidence soon vanishes into thickets impenetrable to me.
Because their biological clocks are tuned to an internal rhythm, snowshoe hares don’t look at the calendar or pay attention to unusual weather. It’s said that their ears are sensitive to seasonal temperature changes and complement their eyes in detecting gradual differences in the length of day. Such sensory perception, together with hormonal adjustment, initiates the twice-yearly replacement of coat.
Because it takes about two months to complete this biannual transformation, hares must prepare well in advance. In autumn, white patches along the sides and underbelly appear before the animal turns completely white along with the new blanket of snow. The winter coat gleams with white, insulating hair that is longer and heavier than the thin, rusty brown coat of summer.
Several months from now, as snow retreats into patches, if I see a varying hare with brown replacing white in anticipation of spring, I hope there will no late blizzard. It would be bad news for the darkening hare, and personally unwelcome as I wait for spring’s explosion of green.
Bill Amos is a retired biologist and author living in St. Johnsbury, Vermont.
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