The white-tailed jackrabbit appears in 52 Idaho records scattered across 19 counties, from Bannock and Cassia in the southeast out to Owyhee in the southwest and up through Blaine in the center. That spread traces the state’s open country, grassland, sagebrush flats, and high mountain meadows, rather than any one corner of it.
Built for big, open ground
This is the largest jackrabbit in North America, a rangy hare of plains and plateaus that does not burrow. It spends the day crouched in a shallow form scratched into the soil and relies on eyesight and speed, covering ground in long bounds when flushed. It grazes grasses and forbs through the growing season and clips sagebrush and dry stems when green feed is gone. Records from Castle Rocks State Park, the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, and Caribou National Forest show it holding open ground from low sage country to high elevation.
A coat that flips with the snow
Unlike its black-tailed cousin, the white-tailed jackrabbit molts to white for winter, keeping only its dark ear tips and pale tail stripe, then browns again in spring. It neither hibernates nor migrates, and Idaho reports arrive in every month of the year, with a modest crest in July when the hares are most active after dark and most visible at dawn.
Status in Idaho
NatureServe ranks the white-tailed jackrabbit S3, Vulnerable, in Idaho, and the species is native to the state. As a grassland and shrub-steppe specialist, it depends on the same open country that has been steadily converted or fragmented across the region.
Full species profile
