“Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. “But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one. – Matthew 5:36-37 NKJV
“Come now, let’s settle this,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool. – Isaiah 1:18 NLT
Snowshoe hares (often called rabbits) change color depending on the season of the year. During the spring, summer, and fall, these hares are a rusty brown color, as seen in the animal pictured on the right. Its feet often remain white all year. In the winter, the fur of the entire animal turns white to blend in with the snow, like the hare pictured on the left.
All of this color change takes place for the purpose of camouflage, or concealment from predators. These hares prefer as much cover as possible, and are often abundant in areas of new forest growth where the understory of vegetation is dense.
Like many biology students at university, I learned about a close correlation between the number of snowshoe hares and one of its predators, the Canada lynx. As an abundance of favorable environmental conditions occurs for the hare, its population increases dramatically. This can happen in a short amount of time, as quickly as two – five years. Right behind the population spike of this prey species, the number of Canada lynx surges as well. Then the population of the hare crashes, usually due to food and habitat shortages. To put it simply, their large numbers cause them to eat themselves out of house and home, so to speak. This in turn causes the population of lynx to take a dive, as their main food source becomes scarce.
To read a bit about the difference between a hare and a rabbit, and why this critter is called a snowshoe hare, please see Snowshoe-Hare-Color-Change I.
And to read how God is able to wash your sins away and make them white as snow, I encourage you to see Got God?
Hope you have a really great day.