ROANOKE, W.Va. — West Virginia is the southernmost range of the elusive snowshoe hare, but now the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources wants to figure out just how abundant they are in the highest elevations of the state.
“We really don’t know how abundant they are right now and the best way to go about it is look at densities. If you get enough recaptures or redetections then we can get a relative abundance and relate it to the habitat they are in,” said Mack Frantz, Zoologist with the DNR’s Natural Heritage Program for Wildlife Diversity
Frantz laid out the plans for a four year comprehensive study of the snowshoe hare to the Natural Resources Commission during their October meeting at Stonewall Resort.
Snowshoe hare are found in the state’s highest elevations stretching from Tucker and Grant County all the way to Greenbrier County along the spine of the Allegheny Front. The species is native to the state, but their numbers were bolstered in the 1940’s by transplant from some northern states into the West Virginia mountains.
“Some of them were released in the late 40’s. It was just part of a reintroduction. The same was done with cottontails by hunting clubs in the 1920’s,” said Frantz
He added, they haven’t had much observation of the species since the mid 60’s.
“It wasn’t until 1967 we finally decided to look at what area of the state they’re occupying. That’s where we got our historical map and our understanding of where they are in the state,” he explained.
The hare, although similar in appearance to a rabbit, is an entirely different species. The hare changes colors in the winter from brown to all white. They also don’t den underground, but spend most of their days in dense, thick low lying ground cover. They’ll often sit all day and move at night to avoid detection.
Frantz and his team are using trail cameras to document the critters and are actually collecting droppings which give an individual signature to tell one from another. The information from those droppings is expected to offer key information on the range and density of the animals in West Virginia’s high country.
There are key questions about snowshoe hare they are trying to answer. In other states there have been issues with coat colorings not making the transition or making only a partial transition from summer to winter. Frantz said other states believe it’s tied to climate change and milder winters, but they’ll be working to determine if that is the case or if other factors are at play.
They snowshoe hare’s range overlaps with that of the eastern and Appalachian cottontail rabbits. Although they are different species, it’s difficult to tell their droppings apart. Therefore, they group will fold a rabbit study into the snowshoe hare study as well since they’ll likely pick up data from both species as they collect the droppings.
According to Frantz although predators can be a significant threat to hares and rabbits alike, it’s not believed to be much of an issue because of the extreme location you’ll have to go to find snowshoe hare in West Virginia.
“We really don’t know the density of predators, but looking at surrounding states the cottontail is about five percent of the coyote diet so it’s relatively small. A West Virginia study found bobcats have rabbits and hares in their diet about 21 percent of the time. But since West Virginia is at the southernmost point of the range of the snowshoe hare, the predator pressure is relatively low and may not be that bad,” he explained.
The efforts will concentrate in a number of high elevations locations for the next four years.