A snowshoe hare for every pot

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/12/2015 (3781 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This is the time of year we all eat too much and spend too much time sitting on couches, indoors. What better way to burn off those holiday calories than hitting the fields and forest in pursuit of rabbits.

 

By rabbits, I really mean hares. We have two kinds of common hares in Manitoba: the white-tailed jackrabbit and the snowshoe hare. Although they live in two very different habitats, they share one major thing in common: they are delicious.

Jackrabbits live in most every part of southern, agro-Manitoba. While snowshoe hares are forest rabbits, jackrabbits are creatures of the open prairie. There are some large concentrations of jackrabbits right outside the perimeter highway.

There are almost always a few jackrabbits living in and around the shelterbelts that surround most farmyards.

Drainage ditches and the edges of creeks often have jackrabbits living along the edges of the natural cover, where grass and willows meet crop field edges.

Harvested wheat stubble and cornfields near tree strips are dynamite spots since they offer cover and food in close proximity.

Jackrabbits turn white in the winter, and they are nocturnal, so during the day, they lay in shallow depressions they scratch out in the snow and are hard to see.

To find them, you simply walk along the edge of a shelterbelt or other piece of habitat and watch for them to jump up and run.

I favour hunting running rabbits with a shotgun.

It is very productive to hunt in pairs and work towards your partner, pushing jackrabbits towards each other. Communication and planning are the keys to success and as always with hunting, safety comes first.

They may be white and hard to see, but they leave tracks in the snow. A quick look around a spot will tell you immediately through the presence of the unmistakable rabbit track, whether an area is worth a walk.

Once you’ve found a spot, you need to secure permission from landowners. Often you will find after knocking on a farmhouse door, the landowner may really want you to thin out their local rabbit population because they can do serious damage to a farmer’s trees around farmyards.

Snowshoe hares live in most forested areas of Manitoba.

The Sandilands Provincial Forest is a great place to find these bush dwellers with the added bonus this area is public land and open to hunting to all Manitobans.

The Interlake is another good spot to try where there is abundant crown land you can freely access.

 

Rob Olson is the managing director of the Manitoba Wildlife Federation.