|
|
The
big feet of a snowshoe hare
|
As winter descends in earnest, my thoughts
turn to two of Colorado’s most snow adapted animals, the lynx and
the snowshoe hare.
Previously a native to Colorado, the last confirmed
wild Colorado lynx was illegally trapped and killed in 1973. Lynx were
declared endangered in Colorado in 1975. Since 1999, the Colorado Division
of Wildlife (CDOW) has introduced166 lynx to the San Juan Mountains,
relocated from various sites in Canada. Of that, 110 are still believed
to be alive. Forty six lynx kittens have been born in the wild in the
last two years.
Lynx are small cats, weighing in at about 22 lbs., and
are often confused with the more common bobcat. Lynx can be distinguished
from bobcats by their solid black tipped tail (bobcats have white on
the underside of their tails and black rings around it), lack of distinct
spots, and considerably oversized furry feet, which help them walk on
the snow without breaking through while hunting. It is believed that
snowshoe hares make up 80% of the lynx’s diet.
Snowshoe hares are named for their large feet, which
like the lynx’s, help them run on the surface of the snow. Should
a lynx flush a hare out of its daytime hiding place, a hare will leap
away with nine foot bounds, reaching speeds of 28 miles per hour. Snowshoe
hares change color with the seasons. Their fur is snowy white in the
winter and dark brown in the summer, helping them avoid detection from
predators.
Young hares, unlike rabbits, are born with eyes open
and bodies fully furred. Snowshoe hare babies double their weight in
eight days and are weaned by three weeks. Active primarily from dusk
to dawn, they eat all manner of vegetation. Females produce two to four
litters of one to nine young annually. This rapid reproduction can cause
a population explosion, causing the hares to literally eat themselves
out of house and home.
Not surprisingly, when the snowshoe hare populations
swell, so do the lynx populations. When the hare populations plummet,
usually due to a lack of food, the lynx populations soon follow. This
pattern, which is taught in most every college ecology class to demonstrate
the concept of carrying capacity, was originally noticed by Hudson Bay
fur traders in Canada. Since both lynx and hare were trapped for their
fur, fluctuations in the populations were recorded in number of furs
harvested. With over 100 years of trappers’ data, it was found
that in Canada, there was a ten year boom/bust cycle for both the lynx
and hare populations.
Little is known about hare populations in Colorado.
The CDOW has been monitoring hare populations since 1998. It is currently
believed that hares in the Southern Rockies do not experience the same
boom/bust cycles as their counterparts in the north. That’s good
news for the lynx.
MORE ARTICLES
|
