Changes in habitat are believed the chief cause for Pennsylvania's snowshoe hare suppression. But developing a better understanding of the animal in those pockets where it hangs on also is important to piecing together a blueprint for managing habitats for hares. The Game Commission is developing a snowshoe hare management plan that will fortify hare habitat on existing range and strive to expand their range through habitat improvements. The ongoing telemetry is taking place in high-elevation wetlands, scrub oak barrens and northern hardwood stands where controlled burning or forest management treatments have occurred or continue to occur. They are capable proving grounds that should offer insight that strengthens the hare management plan being assembled. "The agency would like to expand hare distribution to provide increased hunting opportunities," explained Jones. "In general, hares depend on young forest and brushy habitat, so 6 recurring habitat treatments will be called for. We're hoping the study will tell us a lot about treatment rotations, or how often and where habitat should be cut or burned or both." In concert with the ongoing telemetry, the Game Commission has biologists conducting hare snow-tracking surveys in the study areas to develop a consistent technique to monitor hare populations and hare responses to habitat treatments and seasonal changes. Agency biologists have been conducting hare surveys on SGL 29 for several years. The fieldwork afoot is in response to direction from the agency's Board of Game Commissioners, which in 2012 asked staff to take a closer look at what was limiting the size and distribution of the state's indigenous snowshoe hare population. "It's been said we really don't know what's happening to the species, that we haven't performed enough research on hares," said Game Commissioner WWW.PENNGAMENEWS.COMhttp://WWW.PENNGAMENEWS.COM