What energized this Arctic hare to keep going and going and going? | Hacker News Reader

What energized this Arctic hare to keep going and going and going?

atlasobscura.com

I live in a rural area in New Mexico where jackrabbits are thick on the ground. I once counted 27 on the road at night in four miles. A couple of weeks ago I drove from home and three jackrabbits scampered away ahead of me. The road there is narrow along a hillside, steep up on one side and steep down on the other, so the hares prefer to stick to the road, and just kept running in front of the car. I was going maybe 30mph, knowing they can get out of the way, not trying to avoid them. One hare gave up and went down the side after maybe a hundred yards. The next one lasted a few hundred yards more. The last jackrabbit must have been having fun, it just kept running in front of the car, around corners, up hills and down, for maybe three miles. I don't think I slowed to less than 25 mph at any point. Finally it dodged off to the side.

Now I know why despite the jackrabbit population, the local coyotes are skinny. I don't know if these southern hares migrate as much as the northern ones. Given their greater food supplies, I doubt it. But I don't much doubt that they could keep pace with their northern cousins at need.

Black tailed jackrabbits, right? I read that they usually live in the same few square miles and don’t migrate.

Is the study of these animals really more important than their welfare? I can imagine this equipment -> https://img.atlasobscura.com/UC6CwEZZ85Acxf1_v1AK52TfEYf_ZWd... has a non-negligible impact on the animal's life.

Without proper studying, there is no way to properly gauge their “welfare.” So yes, the welfare of the Artic hare as a whole is more important than the inconvenience that a collar and ear tags provide to individual members of the species.

That tracking device looks to be about 50% as large as the hare’s head. How are these designs governed and moreover what are the ethical standards?

These are rabbits. They live very harsh life. They don't live long. They can, they are biologically capable of living many years, but they are prey for nearly everything. They also breed like rabbits. If they didn't all get mostly eaten every year we would be knee-deep in them very quickly. Tracking tech might harm a few of these animals and possibly shorten their already short lives, but the insights learned by this may protect their population for many decades.

As a practical matter, I imagine that white collar is less dangerous than the coloured tags which totally defeat their winter camo. (This is Canada, so colour is the correct spelling!) They would probably rather the collar than those tags be so easily seen by predators.

I doubt this will make you feel better but perhaps it will provide context. This scientific team tagged 28 hares.

In most parts of Alaska, they have no bag limit on arctic hare, which are an abundant and renewable resource. This means it is legal for a hunter to go out and shoot 28 hares in a day.

Duracell

Ok this got a genuine chuckle

The joke already was in the title. Both Duracell and Energizer claim the bunny as a mascot. Some areas were exposed more to Duracell advertising others to Energizer ads.

Wow, thanks for leading me down that interesting rabbit hole. Being born in the US in the 80s I only knew of the Energizer Bunny. The Duracell bunny was actually first for a single campaign in 1973, then parodied by Energizer fifteen years later. They settled a trademark dispute after that with Energizer having exclusive rights to use a bunny in the US and Canada, with Duracell elsewhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duracell_Bunny

My rabbits move maybe 50m per day.

Researchers failed in their duty to protect the life of their fluffy research subject.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com