University Park, Pa. -- As the state's brief year-end snowshoe hare hunting season approaches, a Penn State researcher hopes soon to map the animal's current range in Pennsylvania and learn how "varying" hares are distributed across the northern counties.

Although snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus) long have been hunted in the state and always have been known to inhabit the northern tier of the commonwealth, very little is known about their numbers and distribution.

"Pennsylvania is at the southern end of the snowshoe hare's range and we suspect populations are spotty -- but we just don't know," says Duane Diefenbach, adjunct associate professor of wildlife ecology in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences, who is in the midst of a two-year study of the animals. Diefenbach is assistant unit leader for the U.S. Geological Survey's Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, housed on the Penn State campus.

Responses to the Pennsylvania Game Commission's annual game take surveys suggest that snowshoes can be found in a 15,000-square-mile region of sparsely populated, mostly forested land in 33 counties north of Interstate 80, from the Poconos in the east to Warren, Forest and Clarion counties in the west.

But Diefenbach is skeptical about them being so widespread.

"We know they are north of I-80 in places, and even south of I-80 in parts of Clearfield County," he says. "But how widespread and localized their populations are is not known at this point. That's why I am so eager to see the results of our research." A few sportsmen's clubs around the state have stocked snowshoe hares, which may have resulted in scattered, small populations south of Interstate 80.

Diefenbach and Stephen Rathbun, associate professor of statistics, looked at the Game Commission's game take survey responses from 1997 through 2000 and found that snowshoe hares are pursued by only a small cadre of sportsmen. Just 255 hunters of nearly 40,000 respondents indicated they targeted snowshoe hares, and only 100 hares were reported harvested by hunters in just 14 counties.

Diefenbach had hoped to have some answers to his questions about Pennsylvania's snowshoe hare population by now, but it has taken longer than he expected to run DNA tests on fecal matter researchers collected from across the complete northern tier of counties last year. Because fecal pellets from hares, Appalachian cottontail rabbits (Sylvilagus obscurus) and eastern cottontail rabbits (Sylvilagus floridanus) are indistinguishable, DNA tests are required to identify the presence of hares at sample sites. The DNA analyses are being performed by the Huck Institute for Life Science at Penn State.

The research project -- intriguing because of its high-tech approach -- is titled "Distribution and Large-Scale Habitat Associations of Snowshoe Hares in Northern Pennsylvania." The study was approved for funding by the Pennsylvania Game Commission to benefit one of the state's lesser-known wildlife species. Using money allocated to the state from the federal State Wildlife Grant Program, the game commission is providing $80,000 of the $115,000 project cost, with the university supplying the remainder.

Diefenbach said the game commission is interested in his study results because Pennsylvania comprises the southernmost range of this species. "Our results will be considered before the agency implements any management actions to offset potential effects of habitat changes caused by global warming, or loss of conifer cover caused by exotic insect pests such as the hemlock woolly adelgid," he says.

Information yielded by the research might provide a foundation for developing a management plan or implementing habitat management for hares, according to Diefenbach. "Identifying the distribution of hares will provide necessary information to make appropriate management decisions for harvest regulations, to identify potential areas for conservation action and to protect and manage existing habitat," he says.

"Fundamental to setting a direction and action plan for the management of any wildlife species is to clearly define the current status of that species" says Calvin W. DuBrock, Pennsylvania Game Commission Bureau of Wildlife Management director. "This research project being conducted by Penn State is essential for the future management of snowshoe hares in Pennsylvania,"

Cottontail rabbits and snowshoe hares are a lot alike, but there are some important differences. First and perhaps most obvious, snowshoe hares are adapted to living in northern climates where there is near-constant snow cover in winter. Subsequently, hares have larger back feet to help them maneuver on shifting, slippery surfaces -- hence the name "snowshoe."

And hares' fur turns white in the winter to help them blend into their surroundings and avoid predators, which accounts for their other common name -- "varying hare." In winters with snow, their white coat is a definite advantage for hiding from predators. But without snow they are at a severe disadvantage, which is why hares are restricted to northern Pennsylvania.

"Another important difference between hares and rabbits is not so noticeable," notes Diefenbach. "The young of snowshoe hares emerge from their mother able to run, while cottontail rabbit babies are more or less helpless at first."

One cliché about rabbits is as true for hares: They reproduce like, well… rabbits. "Hares are very productive, similar to rabbits in that respect," says Diefenbach. "A female hare might have three litters a year."