Where have all the Mountain Hares gone?

This morning I had an early start heading up Black Hill to look at some contour features for an upcoming navigation course and also to try and get some photos of Mountain Hares, but the day didn’t go as planned.

Years ago when I came up here I would see dozens of Mountain Hares, but on my last two trips I have seen only one Hare on each visit, and the rotting carcass of a Mountain Hare at the side of the footpath five minutes from the car was not a good omen. I did think about checking it for signs of lead shot, but then I recalled images of Mountain Hares with red bulging eyes doing the rounds on Social Media last year, so I kept my hands away from the well decomposed body.

This mornings rare sighting was a solitary Mountain Hare warming itself in the morning sun, and with the sun glinting in its eyes it would have made a perfect image. Typically as soon as I started bringing the camera up it ran off and was never to be seen again. I continued on and made my way over to Wrigley’s cabin and then up to the trig point at ‘Soldiers Lump’, and whilst there were plenty of ‘Meadow Pipit’, and ‘Red Grouse’ with one rare ‘Snipe’ there was no other sightings of any Mountain Hare.

So where are they all then?

We have seen plenty of photos of hundreds of Mountain Hares laid out in rows after being shot by gamekeepers in a bid to control an alleged tick born disease. Then there were the horrendous images of Mountain Hares last year with bulging red eyes, carrying a potential strain of myxomatosis. Then there is the possibility that many have been predated, but I saw nothing else that would be likely to take a hare. I am also aware that Mountain Hares are nocturnal, but I would certainly have expected to see a few more which I have done in previous years.

So I turned to Google to see if I could find any answers, and the first item I found was a BBC report from last year showing that Mountain Hare numbers were at 1% of their 1950’s numbers. mainly down to "indiscriminate and ruthless" mountain hare culls.

The Mountain hare is the UK’s only native hare and was listed as Near Threatened in a recent review by the Mammal Society indicating that the species is of conservation concern in the UK.

What ever the reasons, my move into wildlife photography is certainly going to be more difficult as Mountain Hares and many other species moves towards extinction. I covered a good few miles today, and in any other terrain I would have seen dozens of different species, not just three.