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Omnivorous Herbivore
"Shot a hare..., its fur
smeared with old grease, showing that it had
been in our house eating blubber last autumn,
after it had cast its coat. The house was empty
for some months at that time".
- Freuchen 1935
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The Marriage of the
Fox and the Hare
"The tale of 'the fox
and the hare' tells how a hare married a female
fox, promising to provide her with all the prey
she needed to eat. Sadly, however, he was unable
to live up to his job and, full of shame, told
her that they should separate since he was unable
to look after her. Full of tears, she left him,
mourning the loss of her hare husband".
-Randa 1994
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 In soft snow an Arctic hare may dig deeper craters to reach for food plants.
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Eat and Be
Eaten
Food | Feeding | Predators | Parasites | Food
Web
Food
Although we don't know everything about the diet of Arctic
hares (Lepus arcticus), we
do know that they feed on many different flowers and plants.
Their main food is the Arctic willow (Salix
arctica). They eat all parts of the plant. Their feeding
can be destructive: they will break off sizable twigs and
even dig up roots.
The flowers of purple saxifrage (Saxifraga
oppositifolia) are a favourite food in late spring
and early summer. As it moves from plant to plant, the
Arctic hare will mow the flowers down, eschewing the careful
nibbling of the muskoxen and caribou, which share a liking
for this plant.
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This Arctic hare is eating purple saxifrage. |
Although we classify them as herbivores, hares occasionally
eat meat. At Sverdrup Pass on Ellesmere Island, David
Gray saw hares nibble at the skin and hair on a muskox
carcass. In Rankin Inlet (in Nunavut), Arctic hares frequent
the town garbage dump in winter to search for food and in
Baker Lake (in Nunavut) they break into garbage bags awaiting
pick-up; presumably they are eating kitchen scraps, which,
in this part of the world, likely contain little plant material.
Feeding
Hares in winter usually feed in areas where snow is shallow
or plants are exposed by wind. When their food is buried
under snow, Arctic hares rely on their sense of smell to
locate it. They dig through snow with a rapid beating movement
of their forefeet. In order to break a tough icy crust on
top of the snow, they stamp sharply with their forefeet or
chew at the crust with their teeth.
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