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Footloose
Trad climber
Lake Tahoe
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Topic Author's Original Post - Jun 22, 2013 - 10:45pm PT
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My guess is that the Dana Plateau overlooking 3rd Pillar, say, is now dry.
Or at least has some large dry areas. Given this last winter's conditions.
Wouldn't mind getting a first hand report, though.
Anyone know? Thanks.
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Footloose
Trad climber
Lake Tahoe
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 22, 2013 - 10:50pm PT
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Cragman, thanks.
By the way, have you ever seen those large rabbits
up there around the brink? Way larger than reg jacks. I've wondered
what they are. A guess might be white-tailed jacks?
Anyways hope to see them this season.
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SCseagoat
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Jun 22, 2013 - 11:13pm PT
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^^^^^. With your firepower I'm surprised there was enough left to stuff. They must be mondo big!
Susan
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ms55401
Trad climber
minneapolis, mn
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Jun 23, 2013 - 12:26am PT
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two in the ass...
hey, buffalo bill
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Footloose
Trad climber
Lake Tahoe
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 23, 2013 - 01:38am PT
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That's funny, Cragman. They are pretty big.
So I take it, I'm the only one who's seen them?
Jebus, what'd you climb? You were just there this last week?
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Willoughby
Social climber
Truckee, CA
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Jun 23, 2013 - 01:47am PT
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They are white-tailed jackrabbits. I study 'em - fascinating beasts. Big males can push 10lbs, so they're way bigger than black-tailed jacks. Here's an adult female road kill I found near Tioga Pass last weekend.
They turn white in winter, too.
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Footloose
Trad climber
Lake Tahoe
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 23, 2013 - 01:53am PT
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Will, perfect timing!
Indeed you came to mind when I saw them up there last summer, and again when I posted this evening when I speculated on what they might be.
Your pic looks spot on, thanks for confirming!
p.s. I've never seen such a one in the Carson Range up north here - despite all my mileage and time - eg around Duane Bliss Peak. Only black tails down lower, of course.
Did cross paths with a bear though, couple days ago, up Woodfords, Cloudburst Canyon. Exciting! :)
Edit to add:
Willoughby, very cool. Thanks. Neat to learn there are white-tails in my neighborhood, in Carson Range at at Jobs Sister. I'll keep a look out for em, vestiges and such.
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Willoughby
Social climber
Truckee, CA
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Jun 23, 2013 - 02:06am PT
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Happy to be of your service. Most folks have never heard of the species, so kudos to you, sir! I did a study here in Tahoe a few years ago, trying to confirm and document their distribution around the Tahoe basin. I'm still trying to fill in the gaps along the west shore, and have been expanding the work to include more DNA analyses (of all of our rabbits). Anyway, both the USFS-LTBMU and NDOW considered them extirpated from the region for decades, but I knew that was preposterous. I guess being a high-elevation, cryptic, nocturnal rabbit that only gets seen by skiers who assume they're snowshoe hares, means you occasionally don't get "documented" by the authorities for ... decades. But still, come on! Weird stubborness, and I don't know where it comes from. We've even had folks in high positions at NDOW refuse to believe that there were snowshoe hares at Tahoe. Anyway, we still got 'em. They're particularly thick around Carson Pass, but I found them hanging on to some surprisingly small patches of habitat in the Carson Range. Here are a few pics from my remote cameras, first a two-fer from the ridge between Mt. Rose and Church Peak, ~10,500':
And here's a comparison of size against a cottontail from about 10,000' on Job's Sister:
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Willoughby
Social climber
Truckee, CA
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Jun 24, 2013 - 11:58am PT
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Hey Ron, the beast in the first shot went to my friends' farm dogs (minus the head and hind feet for specimens, that is). Anyway, those dogs didn't seem to mind the flavor/toughness! You'd mentioned seeing them in Dog Valley in another thread. Seems so low!! I think I need to spend more time poking around there and on the surrounding peaks.
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Willoughby
Social climber
Truckee, CA
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Jun 24, 2013 - 12:09pm PT
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Good to know! So close to my home, yet I've barely explored that area at all. I road ride out to the end of the Boca-Stampede Rd all the time, I've cut a couple of Christmas trees in Dog Valley itself, and I do try to ski Lady Bug to Gold Ranch when I can, but really I've barely penetrated that whole area.
Sorry for the thread drift!
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Greg Barnes
climber
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Jun 24, 2013 - 12:21pm PT
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Cool, so are the "snowshoe hares" you see early season near Sonora Pass (like opening weekend, at night, still white) snowshoe hares or white-tail jackrabbits, or would you need to actually study them to figure out?
Also the "snowshoe hares" up in the White Mountains in summer - you can walk right up to them at night, lots near the gate on the road below the Barcroft lab - those might be white-tailed jackrabbits instead?
Thanks for the interesting thread drift...
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Footloose
Trad climber
Lake Tahoe
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 24, 2013 - 12:58pm PT
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Ron, so would say snowshoe hares are about the size of black-tail jacks then? If so, then I remain pretty confident what I see atop Dana are white-tails because of their size.
It's too bad we didn't meet up as teens so close to each other in the CV area bitd, we too enjoyed our share of jack rabbit and cotton-tail meat after a good hunt. It was one of the things to do out there - esp after being primed watching a tv show like Daniel Boone or Wild Kingdom, ha! (btw, I'm a vegan, now, and no longer hunt.)
Good on you, Jeebs, gettin some!
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Footloose
Trad climber
Lake Tahoe
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 24, 2013 - 01:23pm PT
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Ron, thanks for the reply.
So the conclusion then is that there's just no confusing white tails
and snowshoes.
Good to know!
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Willoughby
Social climber
Truckee, CA
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Jun 24, 2013 - 01:52pm PT
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Well, I'll say it can be a little trickier than that. It all depends on how well you see them.
Habitat is a big help, as the white-tailed jacks like the highest elevations, open ridges, and wide-open spaces, whereas the snowshoes like dense cover, mature mixed-conifer, riparian, and especially that super-thick new conifer growth that you can't even really walk through. But there is a lot of overlap, especially in the winter. Here at Tahoe, white-tailed jacks tend to stick to 8500' or above, but in the winter, those within easy striking distance will migrate downslope to the east if the snows get too deep (e.g., Carson Range critters will drop down to the Carson Valley). But those stuck over in the Carson Pass area seem to actually migrate uphill to concentrate on the slopes where the winds scour the ridgetops free of snow (so they can get at something to nibble on - sage, rabbitbrush, creambush, granite gilia).
Sonora Pass, lots of White-tailed Jacks, but prob. some patches of both, depending. White Mtns., definitely White-tailed Jacks.
Right at Luther Pass, the habitat is much better for snowshoe hares, but I've gotten pics of white-tailed jacks on the west side of Waterhouse Pk., and I'm sure they're in Hope Valley too, so they could be transiting from Freel to Stevens via Waterhouse, or going up or down to/from the Valley. I would expect both species there.
BIG = white-tailed jack. That is true, but the snowshoe hares are quite a bit bigger than the cottontails I'm used to seeing, and they can give you the impression of being a surprisingly big rabbit, especially on a gallop, or sprawled out as roadkill. But if you're thinking about saddles, that's a white-tailed jack.
Both of the jacks and the snowshoe are all in the same genus, and actually, all the snowshoe hares we've sequenced from Tahoe have Black-tailed Jack mitochondrial DNA, which means they hybridized at some point. I'm seeking DNA from both White-tailed Jacks and Snowshoe Hares throughout the Sierra, btw.
Two things I look for are relative ear length (longer than head on jack, usu. shorter than head length on snowshoe), and whether or not you notice the tail. On a dead run, the jack sticks its tail out, but you really don't see much of a tail at all on the snowshoes, ever. Here's a pic of a White-tailed Jack that Maysho posted a while back: http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1081557&msg=1087220#msg1087220
As far as the feet go, snowshoe hare feet are definitely crazy big and they can definitely splay them out (they can look a lot like dog tracks in the snow), but still, the jacks' are bigger. I think these are all from adult females, L-R = White-tailed Jack, Snowshoe Hare, Nuttall's Cottontail:
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Footloose
Trad climber
Lake Tahoe
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 24, 2013 - 09:26pm PT
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Willoughby,
you're quite the student/expert in this area.
Kudos to you for your scientific work and care. It's nice to know you're one among others paying attention to this very important part of nature.
Also, it IS a public service, though not always recognized as such. Thank you.
Keep on keepin on! :)
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Willoughby
Social climber
Truckee, CA
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Jun 25, 2013 - 12:59am PT
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Thanks, Footloose! I often feel a bit selfish in my research endeavors, since they have their own rewards, but it's very kind of you to recognize the public benefit. Much obliged!
Given the position that rabbits have in shaping both vegetation and predator communities, it's kind of surprising that the local agencies haven't paid any attention to them. That's starting to change, but it takes a lot of salesmanship and evangelism on my part. We got rejected for a small grant a couple of years ago, with the eventual rationale being that white-tailed jackrabbits weren't a TRPA threshold species. My counter of "well, of course they aren't - you guys didn't even know that species was still around!" wasn't met with the enthusiasm I'd hoped.
We're working with the Veterinary Genetics Lab at UCD Davis on some of this stuff, and we'd really like to suss out some of the connections with Sierra Nevada Red Fox. Surely White-tailed Jackrabbits must be the most important winter prey item for that still-extant Sonora Pass population. Yet another creature that folks didn't even realize was living right under their noses - for almost 90 years!
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Willoughby
Social climber
Truckee, CA
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Jul 30, 2014 - 05:53pm PT
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This thread sorta became an unofficial White-tailed Jackrabbit discussion last year, so I'm sticking with it, title be damned. Spent a few hours stalking jacks in Tuolumne last weekend, and thought I might share a few pics.
Big handsome brute, just loungin'
Twilight nibblin'
Eating his own poop:
Gross!!
I love the buffy/peachy muzzles.
This last one's not in focus, but ... pregnant?
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Willoughby
Social climber
Truckee, CA
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Jul 30, 2014 - 05:57pm PT
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Also, check out this crazy deer that's been milling around the meadow:
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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Jul 30, 2014 - 07:46pm PT
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About 15 years ago discovered a Burrowing Owl on the southern side of the plateau. I wasn't sure what it was but someone with me was an amateur Owl ornithologist.
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