Nebraska’s 58 white-tailed jackrabbit records belong almost entirely to the state’s grass country. Cherry County in the Sandhills leads the count, followed by Sioux and Dawes in the Panhandle, a distribution that tracks open rangeland rather than the farmed east.
Built for open country
This is the largest jackrabbit in North America, an animal that never burrows and instead rests by day in a shallow form scratched into the grass, trusting camouflage until a threat comes close and then relying on speed across open ground. Oglala National Grassland and Nebraska National Forest hold the named-place records, exactly the kind of big, treeless country this hare needs. Grasses and forbs make up the warm-season diet, shifting to buds, twigs, and bark when snow covers the ground.
A summer-weighted year
Breeding runs from spring into summer, and Nebraska’s records build through April, May, and June to a July crest as young hares grow and adults stay busy raising them. Winter reads differently. Across the northern part of its range this jackrabbit trades its gray-brown coat for white, and a white hare on snow is both harder to notice and less often abroad on the coldest days.
Status in Nebraska
NatureServe ranks the white-tailed jackrabbit S3, Vulnerable, in Nebraska, a notably more cautious standing than its G5 global rank. The species is native to the state, and USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
