UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Snowshoe hares never were very common in Pennsylvania, according to Duane Diefenbach. After completing research recently on their distribution and habitat preferences, the adjunct associate professor of wildlife in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences is convinced the state is in danger of losing them altogether.
And, as with other struggling species of wildlife in the Keystone State, Diefenbach believes the hares' situation will be determined by habitat. The cover the species prefers -- dense stands of young conifers and regenerating hardwoods -- is becoming rare in the state.
"Our research has shown that these critters are really, really isolated," Diefenbach says. "The snowshoe hare is clearly at risk in Pennsylvania - but not from hunting. Because hares are so rare and at risk in Pennsylvania, some people might ask why we still hunt them. But I think hunting is largely irrelevant to whether the species persists in the state."
Pennsylvania's traditional one-week-long hunting season for snowshoe hares will take place Dec. 26-31. Bag limits are very conservative for the species, with hunters permitted to take just one hare daily and have no more than two in possession. Only about 5,000 of the 1 million licensed hunters in the state pursue snowshoe hares.
Diefenbach thinks snowshoe hare populations have become more concentrated. "If you look at the historical game-take surveys done by the Pennsylvania Game Commission, you would see that there has not been much change in harvests until recently -- Pennsylvania hunters never took very many hares," he says. "Snowshoes have always been here, probably in stable numbers. But if you consider the 1930s and 1940s, there was a heck of a lot more of the transitional habitat they prefer."
According to the Game Commission's estimates, snowshoe harvests have been decreasing of late, falling from 3,615 hares taken in 1990 to 1,908 in 2003. But during that same period, according to the agency's game-take surveys, hunting pressure has dropped off too, from an estimated 7,831 hunters targeting hares in 1990 to just 5,091 in 2003. "Based on harvest data from the Pennsylvania Game Commission, the range of snowshoe hares in Pennsylvania includes counties of the northern tier of the state and extends south to Maryland through the Laurel Highlands and from the Poconos into Schuylkill County," Diefenbach explains. "We conducted our surveys for hares in 27 counties north of Interstate 80 and found the largest concentrations of the animals in Warren, McKean, Forest and Elk counties in the west and the Poconos in the east. I don't think hares inhabit Maryland anymore, and we could be at risk of losing them from Pennsylvania."
Maturing forests and the disappearance of conifers such as hemlocks due to invasive pests and tree diseases have changed the face of the habitat. And if climate change is warming Pennsylvania, at the southern limit of the snowshoe hare's range, Diefenbach worries, it might mean their days in the Keystone State are numbered.
“Important hare habitat in northern portions of its range is dense, young, regenerating stands of hardwoods and conifers, as well as scrub-shrub wetlands," says Diefenbach. " In contrast, conifer cover is scarce in the unglaciated regions of Pennsylvania, which may comprise the largest portion of the range of hares in the commonwealth.”
The snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) is a species of interest to both hunters and nonhunting wildlife enthusiasts. The hare -- named for its disproportionately large hind feet, which with dense fur and stiff hairs form "snowshoes" -- is well adapted for locomotion in deep, powdery snow. It is also called “varying hare” because it has pure white fur in winter, except for black eyelids and ear tips. Its fur changes to a black-peppered rusty brown or grayish color in summer.
To detect the presence of snowshoe hares, Diefenbach collected fecal samples in areas of prime snowshoe habitat. But because pellets left by hares are nearly identical to those left by cottontail rabbits, also common in Pennsylvania, DNA analysis of fecal matter was conducted to differentiate between species. Researchers also accumulated direct evidence of the presence of hares, such as tracks in snow and visual observations.
"We sampled 213 of 240 selected sites during a four-month period," Diefenbach says. "Hare sign was detected at about half the study sites -- pellets, sightings, tracks or some combination. We found snowshoes most often in transitional habitat, which is becoming increasingly rare in Pennsylvania.
"Our research may have raised as many questions about snowshoe hares in Pennsylvania as it answered," he adds. "I am hoping to do more studies on snowshoe hares to get a better handle on the species' situation here."
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EDITORS: Contact Duane Diefenbach at 814-863-4710 or by e-mail at drd11@psu.edu.
Writer/Editor Jeff Mulhollem 814-863-2719