When people refer to a “snow bunny,” they are often thinking of the snowshoe hare, a mammal adapted to snowy environments. This species, scientifically named Lepus americanus, inhabits the boreal forests of North America and remains active throughout the year. Understanding what these animals eat provides insight into how they thrive in diverse conditions, from lush summer landscapes to harsh winter snows. Their diet shifts significantly with the seasons, showcasing a specialized ability to find nourishment in varied plant matter.
Year-Round Diet
Snowshoe hares are herbivores. During warmer months, from spring through fall, their diet primarily consists of green vegetation. They eat tender buds, new growth of woody plants, and herbaceous plants like grasses, clovers, ferns, leaves, and forbs. Berries and some fungi are also part of their summer diet, providing nutrients for energy and reproduction.
This diverse diet supports their metabolic needs during periods of higher activity and growth. The availability of fresh, green plants offers a rich source of easily digestible nutrients. Snowshoe hares typically feed at dusk and dawn, following well-worn paths known as “hare lines” through dense vegetation. These foraging patterns allow them to efficiently locate food while maintaining access to protective cover.
Winter Foraging Strategies
As winter arrives and snow covers the ground, the snowshoe hare’s diet shifts due to the scarcity of herbaceous plants. Their foraging strategy adapts to rely on more accessible woody vegetation. During these months, their diet primarily consists of twigs, buds, bark, and evergreen conifer needles.
They consume small twigs from deciduous species such as birch, aspen, alder, maple, high-bush blueberry, and willow. When deciduous options are scarce, they turn to conifers like white pine, white cedar, red spruce, and eastern hemlock. Their sharp incisors clip these woody stems. Snow accumulation can even allow them to reach higher branches, as they can stand to clip shrubs up to 45 centimeters from the ground, and higher as snow builds up.
A key adaptation for extracting nutrition from their fibrous winter diet is coprophagy, the re-ingestion of their own feces. Hares have a specialized digestive system with a cecum, located after the small intestine. This cecum contains microorganisms that break down cellulose, a complex carbohydrate in plant cell walls. While the initial digestion may not fully absorb these nutrients, especially proteins and B vitamins, the hare produces nutrient-rich, soft pellets (cecotropes) that are then re-eaten. This second pass through the digestive system allows for the absorption of vital substances that would otherwise be lost, enabling them to sustain themselves on a low-quality winter diet.