A white snowshoe hare against a brown background makes the animal easy prey. Climate change is a concern for the species as their camouflage becomes 'mismatched.'
L.S. Mills Research
Sometimes a single species' plight can help to illustrate the impacts of climate change as compellingly as melting glaciers and or a remote Alaskan village's sea level rise.
Take, for instance, the snowshoe hare. NPR spoke to researchers who are studying the small forest hare, including University of Montana grad student, Alex Kumar. He says that snowshoe hares are considered the "cheeseburger of the ecosystem" with many potential predators:
“Lynx, foxes, coyotes, raptors, birds of prey. Interestingly enough, young hares, their main predator is actually red squirrels.”
How does climate change affect the snowshoe hare? The hare typically changes colors to camouflage itself in the forest. They are brown in the summer and white in the winter. If the winter snow comes late, the hare gets 'mismatched.' In other words, it changes colors at the time it's always changed color, which sometimes can be too early.
Kumar feels for the little creatures:
“And they really think that they're camouflaged. They act like we can't see them. And it's pretty embarrassing for the hare.”
More mismatched hares means more hares fall at the mouths of their predators. Researchers are trying to figure out if the hares will adapt as climate changes, and if they can adapt fast enough.
_-- Toni Tabora-Roberts_
