Reports concentrate in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the North Slope, and Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, the open, treeless tundra of western and northern Alaska that makes up this hare’s entire US range. It’s the biggest hare in North America, and it needs exactly this kind of bare, unbroken ground to live the way it does.
Unlike a snowshoe hare or a cottontail, an Alaskan hare never digs a burrow. It scratches out a shallow scrape, sometimes tucked against a tussock for a windbreak, and relies on its seasonal coat, mottled brown and gray in summer, pure white in winter, rather than shelter to stay hidden. It doesn’t hibernate either, staying active right through the polar night and switching from tundra sedges to willow bark and twigs once snow buries the softer plants.
Records turn up in every month, since this hare stays active year-round, but reports run heaviest in March, May, and July. That’s more a function of daylight and field access than of the hare itself changing its habits.
Full species profile
