first time in about 10 years I seen a bunch of snowshoe rabbit tracks hope they start making a come back the state should be helping restock them but they would rather let out more predators like martin and fisher :(
The Snowshoe Hare's biggest downfall is the coyotes!
Once in a while I'll see tracks where a pair of Snowshoe's were active in the backyard here, but I haven't actually seen one in several years!
In this area, coyotes are targets!
There are lots of hares around here and also lots of coyotes, fox, fisher and bobcats.
The hares are almost friendly in the summer and curious year 'round. I'll find thier tracks all around a flatbed trailer or in the driveway.
There was an article in the paper here a year or three ago about them. Here on the NC/VA border we have some of the higher peaks in the Blue Ridge. There are mountaintop remnant colonies of trees and some wildlife left over from the last ice age. I tease my friends on that end of the county, "let's suit up and head for Canada". It really is 2 or 3 climate zones different from here at the house. Anyway, the article in the paper said they had been studying the snowshoe and the population is declining up there mainly because they aren't changing to summer coat early enough now. Whitetop isn't as white as it used to be and their winter coats make them easy for predators to spot. The ones that change earlier should survive to breed that trait, or those colonies might get too small and disappear, time will tell.
use to like hunting them with the old beagle we had he had a way different yelp to him when running them some of the old bucks would take him on a mile or more run some times you would be there till 9-10 at night but both dog and rabbit came back at one point or another how I miss those days when you where allowed to hunt just about any place we had an old couple that had about 50-60a of hard hack and blue berry bushes we where the only ones that hunted it and we had shoot a deer off there land and have it cut and wrapped for them every year 8) they passed on and there kids subdivide it to 5a lots and sold it off :(
Brings back memories, coxy!
Back when I was in school, during the season we'd always make time to get the beagles out and we would usually come home with 10-12 snowshoes!
Now, I wouldn't shoot one for anything, there are just so few of them now!
My Father aways had a beagle. He really enjoyed rabbit hunting. We ate a lot of rabbit stew. I forgot when they disappeared,'75??
We never had any beagles but we would track them best we could and got plenty until about '85. Just about the same time coyotes showed up in serious numbers. Still have some rabbits around, pretty much around houses and where the coyotes are not comfortable hanging out very long.
Snowshoe hares? I can't even keep cottontails here on my place and it is my own fault. We moved here 27 years ago and the old hermit here before us had let the place get overgrown with multiflora roses and the place was full of cottontails rabbits, woodchucks, etc. After several years of diligent effort we got the worst of the roses cleared out and fences built that would sometimes hold a flock of goats which in turned cleaned out the rest of the roses allowing us to raise a few cows and finally a horse and mule. Everything is gone except the equines which maintain the place. With the roses gone the sunlight reaches the ground and more grass is growing where it formerly could not. The down side is the small game no longer has a place to hide and disappeared.
just checked my calendar 35 cottontail rabbits so far this season in wooden box traps toward my goal of 60 to allow us to have a meal of rabbit once a week for the year. Skin, take the legs and loins. The rest go to our cats. My wife separates the loins from the legs when she freezes them. I catch and clean. She freezes and cooks them. The loins go in the frying pan and the legs in the crock pot.
We love rabbit (cottontails) too, but sadly my trees have "closed canopy" and I no longer have the briars for habitat.
The Cottontails are on the upswing here . Had one live under my OWB last year . In the morning he would run out and sit and wait for me to fill and leave then run back under . This year we have about 6 . Feeding on deer corn bird seed under the feeder . They are a snoopy I see tracks around every thing I move each day .
Back in my Missouri days we hunted rabbit all winter and had the run of a number of local farms. We ate all we got, Texas is not rabbit eating country, and I miss the dern things.
My property is loaded with rabbits some years more than others .
We have bobcats and this year coyotes coming in the yard .
The deer stayed by the pond this year because it still had water when other places did not .