North Dakota has a single snowshoe hare record since 2000, an iNaturalist observation from Pembina County in August 2022. Pembina sits in the state’s most thickly wooded corner, where the Pembina River bottom and the Pembina Hills give a forest hare room at the very southern edge of its range.
Forest pockets in a grassland state
Snowshoe hares are boreal animals, built for deep snow and dense cover, and North Dakota offers that only in patches: the northeastern river forests, the Turtle Mountains along the Canadian border, and the wooded breaks of the Little Missouri country in the west. The big wetland refuges suggested for viewing ring this country rather than sitting in it; their brushy edges and shelterbelts are the likeliest ground.
A coat that changes with the season
Snowshoe hares molt from brown to white for winter and back again in spring. In the mismatch weeks, a hare turning white against bare brown ground, or brown against fresh snow, stands out to anyone watching. With one record on file, North Dakota offers no seasonal pattern to read.
Status in North Dakota
NatureServe leaves the species unranked in North Dakota, native but unassessed, and globally it’s secure. At the southern fringe of the range, though, a hare this tied to snow and thick cover is worth keeping records on as winters shorten.
Full species profile
