Snowshoe hares sit at the southern edge of their range in West Virginia, confined to the state’s highest Allegheny elevations where snow cover lasts long enough to make their white winter coat a genuine camouflage advantage rather than a liability, and NatureServe’s S3 vulnerable rank reflects that precarious, climate-sensitive foothold. Most of the state’s 26 records, 26 of them, come from iNaturalist, suggesting casual sightings of hares against snow drive much of what’s documented.
January and February together account for 15 of the 26 records, more than half, exactly the window when a snow-white hare stands out most against a still-white landscape, while the near-total summer silence, nothing at all from September through November, fits an animal that’s far harder to spot once it’s turned brown and blends into bare ground.
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