Deborah Weisberg

Hunters are being asked to help monitor snowshoe hare populations so the Pennsylvania Game Commission can gain a greater understanding of where hares exist on the landscape, and whether they are turning white in winter as expected.
Loss of suitable habitat, population fragmentation, and variable winter conditions where there is sometimes little snow threatens the species, which is now thought to be declining in Pennsylvania, and has again been listed as a species of greatest conservation need.

With the opening of rabbit season, the Pennsylvania Game Commission is asking hunters to keep an eye out for evidence of rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus 2 (RHDV2), which is rapidly spreading in the West and threatening to move eastward.
Since it was first documented in the U.S. in 2020, RHDV2 has impacted wild and domestic rabbit and hare populations in 29 states, and while it hasn’t surfaced east of the Mississippi River, its arrival in Pennsylvania may be just a matter of time, said commission small game mammal biologist Emily Boyd.