Color-Changing Hare Can't Keep Up With Climate Change - ScienceNOW

After more than a decade of studying snowshoe hares in the Rocky Mountains, L. Scott Mills, a wildlife biologist at the University of Montana, Missoula, noticed that the animals were beginning to stick out more than usual. In winter their coats turn white; in summer they are a mottled brown. But Mills was beginning to see white hares on brown backgrounds.   [So white hares didn't occur on brown backgrounds until quite recently?  Did this ever happen in 1985, or 1885, or 1285, or 3885 BC?]

To figure out what was going on, he and his colleagues put radio tags on about 50 hares in each of three winters, two of which represented extremes in weather. The year 2010 was quite warm, with snow cover lasting 160 days. The next year was the opposite, one of the coldest on record, and snow persisted on the ground for 190 days.

Camouflage mismatch in seasonal coat color due to decreased snow duration

Edited* by Paul R. Ehrlich, Stanford University

2008: Snowshoe Hare Population Explosion!

Two years ago I spent a fair amount of time photographing hares, as it seemed the population had peaked. Last year I was surprised to find even more, but this year the number of hares was nothing short of unbelievable! Driving the road in evenings and mornings was literally was a challenge, often they wouldn’t move from the road and you would have to drive around them. Dozens were killed by cars everyday making easy pickings for other wildlife. One wolf in particular seemed to walk the road every evening just eating road killed hares.