Blue Hare

Last evening my boys shot a blue hare. I’ve never seen anything like it. Has anyone seen one before?

there are a FEW white ones around pleasant point.... have seen photo of a black one before but never blue....
did it go to the dogs or taxidermist???

This is the only image I could find on line , gives a bit of an idea of what it looked like before it was shot

I put it in the freezer, thought I better keep the options open.

Saw two black ones regularly on a farm at Ikamatua and the owners told all hunters about them and not to shoot them.
A typical clueless bugger shot one of them anyway and went to show it off to the farm manager ( I nearly shot one once because it looked like a black cat sitting by a tree ... then he put an ear up and was safe ).
The hare was taken off him and he was asked to leave the property and not return.
They were on opposite sides of the Grey River.

Still saw the other one regularly until a few years ago.

That will be a hare with a hefty dose of Mountain Hare genes. The blue coloration is a dead giveaway.

99.9% of the hares we have here are the European Brown Hare. You have a 0.1% likelihood hare! Well, you know what I mean, its a rarity for sure.

Our hares came from Britain. It’s possible someone brought some in from somewhere else too, which makes the likelihood of one of the multiple subspecies interbreeding with the brown hare more likely. The Mountain Hare sub-species is found in Scotland with isolated populations in northern England. Crossbreeds used to pop up now and then in the Midlands. I’d say that what you’ve got there is a descendant of a Mountain Hare cross, that made its way over either with the original importation of hares in the mid-1800s, or maybe another way. The genes will have been passed down through hundreds of generations and at some point it’s inevitable that one will pop out that is a throwback.

Good find, and somewhat unfortunately it’s dead!

i suggest you dye it the correct colour, i believe the product required is hare restorer

I shot a white one in the North Island,got it taxidermied but the photo of the kill looks better than the mount.Stirling 14p effort as usual.
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O'Rourkes in Canterbury mounted a black one.

Thanks Flyblown and Dundee, that's really interesting.

Shot and seen a few whites but not a blue,so rear woow.

At least it wasnt a rainbow one - think of the protests that would generate.

Why was he blue ?
Did you shoot him with blue balls ? :) :)

Ive heard of a Blue rinse brigade...but I thought blue hair was for older ladies......:thumbsup:

Shot a black one donkey years ago in the Clarence valley. Got it mounted by Gerry O Rourke - Cant remember whatever happened to it

Did you leave it with Cheryl and bung eye when you left.:::roll: