Identifying forest features that increase resiliency of southern‐boundary snowshoe hare populations in Pennsylvania

Abstract Forest management is a potential tool to increase the resiliency of snowshoe hare ( Lepus americanus ) populations to the negative demographic impacts of low‐snowfall winters. Pennsylvania's forests and landscape differ from those of the core snowshoe hare range, and region‐specific data are needed to optimize forest management for snowshoe hares. We used spatial capture‐recapture to model snowshoe hare population density on 10 forested sites in northwestern Pennsylvania, USA, in winter 2024. Snowshoe hare densities were bimodal with respect to stand age, with the greatest densities in early‐successional stands ≤25 years old and in mature stands 98–110 years old. Early‐successional stands supported snowshoe hare densities 4 times greater than mature stands in our study area on average, although mature forest also supported high population densities when understories were dense. Snowshoe hare densities in mature forest tended to be greater near early‐successional stand edges except in the oldest stands where understory reinitiation may have provided sufficient resources. Generating early‐successional cover via overstory removal can maintain and improve quality landscapes for snowshoe hare populations, but management actions that increase understory densities in mature forests likely will also benefit snowshoe hares and result in greater population densities across a landscape than could be achieved solely via early‐successional forest management.