DONNELLY FLATS — The Interior's bunny population is on the rise. In a couple of winters' past, it was tough to find tracks of the little white critters. Now I spot two or three hares every time I'm out on the trails.
We call them rabbits, but they are really snowshoe, or varying, hares. One of the main differences between hares and rabbits is that baby hares (leverets) are born fully furred and are ready to move quickly, while rabbit kits are hairless and helpless at birth. By June, I suspect we will see a number of young hares along the roadsides.
Alaska hares have a dramatic boom/bust cycle, something that's been studied extensively in the Yukon. Hares have a 10-year cycle that is almost entirely driven by predator/prey interactions. The cycle is relatively constant across the range of these animals in their boreal forest habitat. Hares at Kluane Lake in southwest Yukon have a population spike timed closely with hares in Paxson or Fairbanks.
600 per square mile
Periods of peak abundance may see up to 600 hares per square mile. The exact cause of the declines are unknown, though biologists say they may include overbrowsing their food supply, as well as predators and parasites.
I trapped on the Little Charley River east of Fairbanks during the winter of 1973-74. My trapping partner, Ole Van Orsdel, and I ate beans and caribou most of the winter because bunnies were almost nonexistent. We snared them whenever we could and they provided a welcome addition to our food supply.
Ole and I would start a pot of beans on the wood stove in the morning when we left the cabin. The rabbit was added at the same time. We trapped on snowshoes, and by the time we returned to the cabin in the evening, we were starving. Of course, the bunnies were excellent.
I find slow cooking the best way to prepare hares. Cook them on a low simmer for three or four hours and add the vegetables during the last hour. If one uses beans, then the pre-soaked red beans should be put in the pot when the meat is started. Rabbit may also be fried effectively, but remember to keep cooking temperatures low. However they're prepared, there is a lot of meat on a hare. Everything except the ears is good food.
Catching hares isn't hard. They like to use trails and don't travel far. I'm not a big fan of shooting them because of the meat damage, though if you move slowly in the brush and take them while they are sitting, that method works.
Snares are the most effective and least invasive way to harvest hares. If you choose to snare your food, take care to only set a few snares. A properly set snare has a high success rate and a couple of rabbits are enough to feed a family of four.
30 cents per hide
The fur of snowshoe hares is useable but limited in value. On a scale of one to 100, the durability of their fur ranks about five. The hide is also extremely thin and delicate, requiring extreme care if you attempt tanning.
When I was a kid in the 1960s, I had a market for the fur. A woman who lived near Girdwood was using the hides as a backing for her ink drawings, and she paid me 30 cents for each stretched hide. Thirty cents went a little further back then than it does today.
The 10-year cycle of hares is due to peak over the next couple of years. It will seemingly happen overnight as each female will produce between 15 and 20 young in the summer. The predator population is relatively low right now and will lag a year or so behind the hare population spike before rebounding in response to the dramatic increase in the food supply.
Interestingly, much of the research in predator populations as related to hare peaks has been carried out with data collected from the fur sales of the Hudson Bay Company in Canada back in the 1800s. Anecdotal information, tied with hard data from numbers of lynx and coyote furs bought by the company, offers a clear picture of the timing of hare cycles.
Valuable food source
Today, there are far fewer trappers dependent on hares. However, trapping is still an important part of the culture and economy of outlying areas of Alaska and Canada. More importantly, snowshoe hares play one of the most important roles in the health of our boreal forests.
Browsing hares improve vegetation quality. They provide valuable fertilizers. Without the abundant food source these animals provide, lynx and great horned owls and other predators would find it hard to survive.
Enjoy the boom. If you are a photographer, a hunter or a trapper, use this resource wisely and take care to stay on the highway when one of these little critters runs onto the road.
John Schandelmeier is a lifelong Alaskan who lives with his family near Paxson. He is a Bristol Bay commercial fisherman and two-time winner of the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race.