THE DIET OF THE MOUNTAIN HARE (LEPUS-TIMIDUS-HIBERNICUS) ON COASTAL GRASSLAND

Across most of their range in Europe, mountain hares are usually restr icted to upland areas with poor food quality. In these areas they gene rally feed on browse species such as heather or twigs and barks of tre es. On lowland areas in Europe, with better food duality, the mountain hare is replaced by the brown hare (Lepus europaeus) which feeds pred ominantly on grasses. This has led some authors to conclude that mount ain hares are primarily adapted for browsing. In the absence of brown hares in Ireland, mountain hares are found on a wide variety of habita ts including grassland. On grassland, their diet consists almost exclu sively of grasses, up to 94% of their annual diet, which is more than has been reported for brown hares on similar habitat. Based on this ev idence, and other work, it is proposed that the mountain hare is prima rily a grazing animal and competitive exclusion by brown hares may und erlie much of their present distribution in Europe.