We investigated on any inclinations of Japanese hare selecting vegetation as environment. We used fecal pellet method for grasping hare numbers in some hectare area where hares could move freely. The area includes some different plant communities like deforested bush, Japanese red pine forest, artificial Japanese cedar forest, and secondary oak forest. We checked the relationships between the number of fecal pellets and plant volumes within four belts (2×50 m in each) that were set from the central deforested bush to the forests. On the whole, as a result, both plant volume and the number of fecal pellets were more in deforested bush than those in the forests. It suggested that volume of grasses and herbs, as food, were much in deforested bush. Regardless of pellet number, the frequency of the fecal pellets were higher in red pine forests. That would be because there were moderate grasses and herbs for food, and pine tree canopies had a role of shelter against predators like eagles. On the other hand, there were few fecal pellets under the artificial Japanese cedar forests with less plant cover. Thus we reconfirmed that Japanese hares selected vegetation environments as their habitat positively.
