snowshoe hare

Description:

The Snowshoe Hare (Lepus americanus), also called the Varying Hare, is a species of hare found in North America. It has the name "snowshoe" because of the large size of its hind feet and the marks its tail leaves. The animal's feet prevent it from sinking into the snow when it hops and walks. Its feet also have fur on the soles to protect it from freezing temperatures. For camouflage, its fur turns white during the winter and rusty brown during the summer. Its flanks are white year-round. The Snowshoe Hare is also distinguishable by the black tufts of fur on the edge of its ears. Its ears are shorter than those of most other hares. In summer, it feeds on plants such as, grass, ferns and leaves; in winter, it eats twigs, the bark from trees, and buds from flowers and plants and, along with the Arctic Hare, has been known to steal meat from baited traps.[3] Hares are cannibalistic under availability of dead conspecifics, and have been known to eat dead rodents such as mice due to low availability of protein in an herbivorous diet. It is sometimes seen feeding in small groups. This animal is mainly active at night and does not hibernate. The Snowshoe Hare may have up to four litters in a year which average 3 to 8 young. Males compete for females and females may breed with several males. Snowshoe hares in the wintertime change their fur to a white coat, and in the spring their fur coat changes back to a dark brown coat with some light brown as well. The snowshoe hares weight is usually 2 - 4 lbs. The length for snowshoe hares are usually 16 - 20 inches. Snowshoe hares share environments with squirrels. The snowshoe hare and lynx have a parasitic relationship in that a lynx is a carnivore and a hare is a herbivore. Meaning that the hare eats plants and the lynx eats meat. A hare is meat, so a lynx could feed off of the hare. the Canadian lynx preys heavily on the snowshoe hare. (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_re...) The snowshoe hare lives in temporary cold environments where when winter time swings by they turn their fur coats into a snow white. Their fur coats are white because white fur is mostly hollow, meaning it can absorb more heat from the sun. Snowshoe hares sexual reproduction occurs when snowshoe hares begin breeding in early March and continue through August. During mating, male hares purse the females, leading them in zig-zag chase through the woods. Each male mates with several females and the female hare can produce two to five litters per year. After a gestation period of 36 days, the female snowshoe gives birth to 3 or 4 young. No nest is actually constructed, although she may give birth in a packed down area or "form" in sheltered spot under bushes, grass, shrubs or a fallen tree. The young hares are precocial, fully covered with soft downy fur. They weigh; about 2 1/2 - ounces and their eyes are open. Soon after birth, the young hares begin to hop around and, they are quite active after about one week. When they are ten days old, the young snowshoes begin nibbling on grass, although they are not weaned until they are a month old. They grow quickly and reach their adult size by about five months. Snowshoe hares breed during the spring following their birth. However, mortality is high for the young hares and only about 30 percent of them reach one year of age. Those survivors will live for about 2 years on the average. (http://www.timberwolfinformation.org/kid...)

Habitat:

Major variables in habitat quality include average visual obstruction and browse biomass. Snowshoe hares prefer young forests with abundant understories. The presence of cover is the primary determinant of habitat quality for snowshoe hares and is more significant than food availability or species composition.[19] Species composition does, however, influence population density; dense softwood understories support greater snowshoe hare density than hardwoods because of cover quality. In Maine it was observed that female snowshoe hares were more common on sites with less cover but more nutritious forage; males tended to be found on sites with heavier cover.[20] Winter browse availability depends on height of understory brush and winter snow depth; 6-to-8-foot-tall (1.8 to 2.4 m) saplings with narrow stem diameters are required for winter browse in heavy snow.[21] In northern regions snowshoe hares occupy conifer and mixed forests in all stages of succession, but early successional forests foster peak abundance. Deciduous forests are usually occupied only in early stages of succession. In New England snowshoe hares preferred second-growth deciduous, coniferous, and mixed woods with dense brushy understories; snowshoe hares appear to prefer shrubby old-field areas, early- to mid-successional burns, shrub-swamps, bogs, and upper montane krumholz vegetation.[11] In Maine snowshoe hares were more active in clearcut areas than in partially cut or uncut areas. Sapling densities were highest on 12- to 15-year-old plots; these plots were used more than younger stands.[22] In northern Utah snowshoe hares occupied all the later stages of succession on quaking aspen and spruce-fir but were not observed in meadows. In Alberta snowshoe hares use upland shrub-sapling stages of regenerating aspens (either postfire or postharvest). In British Columbia overstocked juvenile lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) stands formed optimal snowshoe hare habitat.[23] In western Washington most unburned, burned, or scarified clearcuts will normally be fully occupied by snowshoe hares within 4 to 5 years as vegetation becomes dense.[24] In older stands (more than 25 years) stem density begins to decline and cover for snowshoe hares decreases.[17] However, in north-central Washington snowshoe hares may not colonize clearcuts until 6 or 7 years and it may take 20 to 25 years for snowshoe hare density to reach maximum. Winter snowshoe hare pellet counts were highest in 20-year-old lodgepole pine stands, lower in older lodgepole stands, and lowest in spruce-dominated stands.[17] In western Oregon, snowshoe hares were abundant only in early successional stages including stable brushfields.[7] In west-central Oregon, an old-growth Douglas-fir forest was clearcut and monitored through 10 years of succession. A few snowshoe hares were noted in adjacent virgin forest plots; they represented widely scattered, sparse populations. One snowshoe hare was observed on the disturbed plot 2.5 years after it had been clearcut and burned; at this stage ground cover was similar to that of the uncut forest. By 9 years after disturbance snowshoe hare density had increased markedly.[25] In western Washington snowshoe hares routinely used steep slopes where cover was adequate; most studies, however, suggest that snowshoe hares tend to prefer gentle slopes.[24] Moonlight increases snowshoe hare vulnerability to predation, particularly in winter. Snowshoe hares tend to avoid open areas during bright phases of the moon and during bright periods of a single night.[26] Their activity usually shifts from coniferous understories in winter to hardwood understories in summer.[27] Vegetative structure plays an important role in the size of snowshoe hare home ranges. Snowshoe hares wander up to 5 miles (8 km) when food is scarce.[15] In Montana home ranges are smaller in brushy woods than in open woods. In Colorado and Utah the average home range of both sexes was 20 acres (8.1 ha). On Montreal Island of Quebec, the average daily range for both sexes was 4 acres (1.6 ha) in old-field mixed woods. In Montana the home range averaged 25 acres (10 ha) for males and 19 acres (7.6 ha) for females.[28] In Oregon the average snowshoe hare home range was 14.6 acres (5.9 ha).[29] NICHE: They usually live in a relatively cold environment such as Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The snowshoe's diet changes with the seasons. During the summer, hares forage on green vegetation including grasses, clover, dandelions and raspberry and blackberry shoots. In the winter, when fresh vegetation is unavailable, snowshoes feed on buds, twigs and bark of woody plants like aspen, willow, birch, maple, sumac, and alder. They also prefer the needles of conifers, including fir; cedar; hemlock, spruce, and white pine. Snowshoe hares sometimes damage forests by destroying young trees and new forest growth. They especially affect conifer plantations and nurseries, where high densities of young trees occur. However, in natural forest areas, the hares can actually be beneficial as they thin young stands and allow surviving trees better growing conditions. In any case, the damage done by hares is usually far outweighed by the many benefits of the species -- both as game animal and as a valuable part of our state’s ecosystem. The snowshoe hares predators are lynx, coyote and on occasion hawks.