JACKSON, Wyo. — According to the National Park Service (NPS), snowshoe hares serve as a critical food source for predators like lynx, great-horned owls and golden eagles during early nesting season.
The snowshoe hare gets its name from its winter adaptation of large hind feet lined with stiff hairs that act like snowshoes, the NPS writes on its website. As a prey species, snowshoe hare experiences a seasonal variation in fur color, from brown in the summer to white in the winter, to assist it with camouflage. This color variation occurs due to the gradual shedding of their coat and the replacement of guard hairs twice a year, triggered by shifts in day length and light.
According to the NPS, the relationship between snowshoe hares and their year-round predators is well documented and shows a high dependence of predator on prey.
“As an important prey species for a wide variety of predators, the population size and reproductive success of many predators cycle with the abundance of hare,” the NPS writes.
What’s tricky is that snowshoe hair populations are notorious for boom and bust cycles, including populations in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). According to the NPS, snowshoe hare populations cycle in eight to 11 year periods, and densities may fluctuate anywhere from five to 25 times the amount during a cycle.
“The causes of the cyclic fluctuations of snowshoe hares are debated among scientists,” the NPS writes. “Scientists have proposed many hypotheses to explain the changes in population size that lead to these cycles. These hypotheses usually center on food limitation, patterns of predation and links between food supply and predation.”
Currently, Grand Teton National Park does not have a population estimate for the species.
