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Article: Astrology for snowshoe hares. (population cycle linked to sunspots and solar cycle)
- Article from:
- National Wildlife
- Article date:
- June 1, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 National Wildlife Federation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Throughout the forests of Canada and the northern United States, populations of snowshoe hares are now exploding. But as recently as the winter of 1994, at research sites where only a few years earlier ecologists had recorded many hundreds of hares per square mile, the animals' numbers had dwindled to a few dozen or even none at all. Ecologists, however, didn't panic. They knew that if they waited, the big-footed creatures would soon cram the forests once more. And last summer, the population started booming again as predicted. "We expect the next peak to be about 1998 or 1999 at the latest," reports biologist Charles Krebs of the University of British Columbia.
How ...