Snowshoe hares turn white in winter and brown in summer, a camouflage strategy that works well against snow but leaves them exposed during Massachusetts’ increasingly short and unreliable snow seasons. Mount Greylock State Reservation, in the cooler, higher-elevation Berkshires, anchors most of the state’s confirmed records, since this hare needs the dense conifer and shrub cover found more reliably in western Massachusetts than in the warmer, more developed east.
Records show a scattered pattern across January, a stretch from May through July, and December, without one dominant peak, likely reflecting how thinly reported this species already is rather than a clean seasonal rhythm. Massachusetts’ snowshoe hare population sits at the southern edge of the species’ range, and NatureServe’s S4, apparently secure, rank comes with less certainty here than farther north.
Full species profile
