9/11/05 – We received this email from Tom Weiss.
I did a 9-day trip out of Cross Bay last week and this week and wanted
to relate something that was pretty exciting to me that happened:
A snowshoe hare in its brown summer coat ran down the point at my
campsite on Long Island Lake, and ran around my feet several times, not
more than a few feet away. It seemed really agitated and was acting
really strangely. It then ran about 10 feet from me and jumped on an
exposed rock in the water that was about 2 feet from the shore, turned
around, jumped in the water, shook itself off, and then hid behind a big
rock, in plain view to me. I thought it was diseased or something
because it was acting so strangely. Suddenly, I heard galloping feet
through the campsite heading my way. I looked and it was a marten. The
marten ran all over the campsite, around me, and looked like it was
searching for something. It spied the hare, the hare realized it was
busted, and the hare took off down the brushy shoreline about 20 feet,
with the marten in hot pursuit.
I then heard the hare bleating (screaming) for about 15-20 seconds and
then there was silence. I walked toward where I heard the hare making
the sounds, and watched the marten dragging the now-dead hare into the
woods. It was really struggling with it as it was much larger than the
marten. Pretty amazing. Later, I looked for where the marten had
dragged the hare, and couldn’t find it, so it must have dragged it a
long way. I am now impressed with martens.
Tom Weiss