LETTERS (March 24, 27 & 28) about the mountain hare population in Scotland brought back to mind the experience I had in the winter of about January 2012.
While driving north in the area of Dalwhinnie, in the dark at 11pm, a white mountain hare came out of nowhere, loping across the road at an angle towards me. Even swerving to the other side of the road, I was unable to avoid it without putting myself in the ditch, so it went under the car with a thump.
I stopped at the same spot several days later to try and retrieve a part that the collision had removed from the car trim, and after walking along the verge for about half a mile, came across six carcasses ranging from a skeleton to the fresh one I had struck. Which got me thinking: that would be 12 per mile and say over the five miles through the Drumochter Pass, 60 animals. Apparently, they grow a white winter coat from October through to January and decomposition will vary wildly depending on local conditions and temperature. Assuming it takes about two weeks for the body to decompose, and that their deaths are an ongoing process, that equates to about 120 per month. That's 480 over their winter coat period on one section of road on the A9.
Mountain hare populations on Scottish grouse moors can reach very high densities with up to 200 hares per square kilometre. A website I visited suggests that around 50 per cent of mountain hare populations are cyclic and show regular changes in density every five-15 years.
The reasons for these regular fluctuations remain unclear. Has anyone factored in the fact that there is such a huge loss due to them wandering on to roads and railway tracks across the Grampian range in winter?
Ian McDonald,
2 Stuarthill Drive, Maryburgh.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article