Snowshoe hare (Lepus Americanus) habitat use in the sub-boreal forests of North-central British Columbia

Understanding a species’ habitat use allows researchers and managers to identify areas and/or features essential to management and conservation. For populations that cycle in abundance, habitat associations may change through time complicating our understanding of how different habitat metrics may be related to preferences shown by the species. Snowshoe Hares (Lepus americanus) are a keystone species as they are a major food source for a diverse array of predators. Understanding their specific habitat associations provides for broader management planning (e.g., the conservation of associated predators). Although hare habitat use has been well studied, gaps in our knowledge still exist including how habitat use differs with ecological scale or throughout their population cycles. In this thesis I examined hare habitat use in the sub-boreal forests of the John Prince Research Forest and surrounding area in north-central British Columbia, Canada. I assessed this relationship at multiple scales, with multiple methods and at varying hare occupancy and densities in order to address these knowledge gaps. I used wildlife camera trapping (2015, 2016 and 2020) and hare pellet counts (2018 – 2020) to passively collect hare detection data and used LIDAR data to quantify habitat variables. My study population also showed evidence of being cyclical and cameras proved useful at detecting population oscillations. I detected a large decline in camera-detection rates during winter from 0.09 (SD = 0.13) in 2015 to 0.03 (SD = 0.05) in 2020. Naive occupancy declined during the period from 0.42 to 0.21. Pellet detections also declined between 2018/2019 and 2020. Distance to riparian area appeared to be the best metric for explaining hare camera detections in 2015, versus canopy closure in 2016 and distance to edge in 2020. Model selection using pellet counts was similar between the two years but canopy closure proved the most useful at explaining hare use at the landscape-scale, versus distance-to-edge for the within-stand models. Habitat use appeared to be density-dependent and also varied at different ecological scales and this should be considered in future habitat studies of Snowshoe Hare, as it has often gone unaddressed in the past.