Once I was in an outdoor outlet to an ornithological association was organized to observe waterfowl in Caceres, Castilla la Mancha, Madrid, and a curious thing happened …
We had stopped to eat in a mound from which he saw a gap, went full speed when running two rabbits, describing a closed curve without stopping to meet our large group. Two seconds are lost in the distance. At 15 seconds it took nearly as swift, but more awkward, two greyhounds that chase, but meet us were distracted and stopped, which made them keep track of.
People broke into a round of applause for the triumph of the rabbits when they arrived just behind the hunters dog owners. Thing understandable considering that we were all there to make a outdoor activity and related environment, and I’m not talking of course of hunting as “sport”, although, as in this case, a species bred for that in many Spanish hunting, as is the rabbit.
Another time I was climbing a mountain in Patagonia and was surprised by a sudden movement to my right: a hare (¿Patagonian or European?) Ran like a soul to the devil, I could hardly appreciate. Nearby (miles, kilometers less) about 8 years later I had the opportunity to see another (or the same?) Hare, which more than once I saw footprints in the snow ahead of our steps.
In this case the fact rewarded me in the saying that says “who helps early bird” because after leaving my refuge at dawn, and while I used to evacuate my bladder in silence enjoying the sound of morning birds combined with the the meltwater streams, so typical of the wild places of Araucania and Patagonia, you can see to my surprise, about 50 meters, a common or European hare (Lepus europaeus), [1] a competitor of the Patagonian hare or mara (Dolichotis patagonum – Salinicola) [2] was devoted to eating quietly at the boundary between the stunted beech forest that was in front, and the stone where he was our refuge-maze.
The hare did not notice my presence, so this time I even had time to take pictures and filming. What’s more, the next day exactly the same happened in the same place: the animals are creatures of habit, many eat at certain times of day and in a circumscribed territory … which sometimes brings his downfall.
The mara or Patagonian hare is not related to hares and rabbits, is a rodent mammal [3] much larger than the common hares and rabbits (adult specimens weighing over 16 kg, against 7 or 8 of the latter). Precisely the European hare, as can be inferred by its name, was introduced in South America to hunt, and (because of man) indirectly responsible for the Patagonian hare or mara is back as a species occupying the same ecological niche between Pampa and Patagonia. Luckily for the hare, I was not caught, but simply a browser lover of the outdoors, and is endemic or not, was a pleasure to watch her act without fear, something rare in a rabbit when the man is nearby.
