Page 9 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #12

WILDDECEMBER

ONLINE
NATURAL
HISTORIES
Hare episode
4 | BROWN HARE
Hare today

Long before brown hares were brought
to the British Isles, most likely by the
Romans, they lived in the vast grasslands
of easternmost Europe and central Asia.
As steppe animals, they evolved to survive
extremes of weather with little or no
shelter. This explains their remarkable
hardiness – hares do not use burrows, but
merely hunker down in shallow scrapes
called ‘forms’. In winter, they find food by
scrabbling snow aside or, if necessary, resort
to browsing shrubs, twigs and even bark.
Flooding and cold, wet springs are probably
more of a threat than snow.

FIND OUT MORE Learn more about hares
at hare-preservation-trust.com