Raising Hare

This set of chapters opens with a series of Chloe’s observations about the hare and its leverets. It is evident that Chloe’s interest in the animal remains rooted in the species’ unique qualities and that her admiration for hares is genuine. In not attempting to tame her hare, she’s allowed it to retain its natural habits, behaviors, and qualities. Her treatment of the hare represents what has become her personal philosophy about wildlife in more general terms: She advocates for observing wild animals without disrupting their lives, developing a thorough body of knowledge about them, and preserving the sanctity of their habitats. 

When the youngest leveret dies for reasons that Chloe cannot identify, she is forced to think more deeply than ever about The Challenges and Rewards of Caregiving. She must let go of the creature and confront her own grief for having lost it. This incident highlights the tension between her role as a caretaker and her desire to preserve the hares’ autonomy and wildness. She recognizes that if she wants to allow the hares to remain wild, she cannot protect them from every misfortune. Her acceptance of the leveret’s unexplained death marks her mature perspective: She recognizes that the hares cannot live full lives without the risk of death. Throughout the novel, incidents like the original hare’s injured leg and the presence of a stoat in the garden have foreshadowed this moment, reminding Chloe that love and caregiving come with the risk of grief. Now, that narrative tension has come to fruition, and her capacity to accept loss is put to the test. 

The penultimate chapter, “Blood in the Harvest,” highlights the destruction wrought by Humanity’s Changing Relationship With Nature. In previous chapters, Chloe’s research on hares has shown her that they occupied a central place in the human imagination for centuries. Sometimes loved, sometimes feared, often hunted, they were nonetheless consistently the subjects of myth and poetry, viewed as an avatar of nature itself. Now, the potato harvesters kill hares by the dozen without anyone even noticing. Chloe goes out in the just-harvested fields and observes that: “the earth was scoured raw” (240). Not only have hares and other small animals been killed, but the plants that offer food and shelter to animals and insects are gone. This careless destruction, aimed at maximizing the efficiency of the harvest without regard to ecological consequences, demonstrates the obliviousness that characterizes humanity’s relationship with nature in the 21st century. The incident prompts Chloe to reflect on the damage that humans have done to hare (and other) populations, and she provides more information about the impact of mechanized agriculture specifically. This in-depth look at farming practices becomes one of the book’s key moments of engagement with conservation philosophy. She notes her own changing attitudes toward conservation: As a young person, she recalls large-scale media campaigns calling for protection for lions, white rhinos, zebras, and other large mammals that conservationists call “charismatic megafauna.” She doesn’t discount the need to preserve and protect those species, but now believes that smaller species, like the hares, stoats, and foxes in her area, also deserve protection. She argues that because agriculture has done more to adversely impact animal populations, humans owe it to the impacted species to protect them. Although her book is a memoir more focused on her own growth trajectory and the hare as a species, it is also an oblique endorsement of small-scale conservation practices. Nowhere is that more evident than in these chapters.

Chloe closes her discussion of The Therapeutic Effects of Nature with an in-depth look at the lessons she’s learned while raising, caring for, and living alongside the hare. She notes her newfound interest in simplicity. Her days have a different rhythm now that her priorities have been simplified. She has stripped away the portions of her life that did not matter to her, and she feels an increased sense of clarity as a result. She has come to realize that life, like nature, is built on cycles and change. Accepting the possibility that her hare and its leverets may leave for good or die is part of accepting the cyclical nature of life. Living with the hare taught her to accept a range of outcomes, not only for the hare but also in other areas of her own life. It also taught her about ephemerality: The hare’s life cycle is only about 3 to 4 years. She will ultimately have to say goodbye to it. She hopes that she will be able, when the time comes, to appreciate the opportunity she had with it rather than focus on the pain of losing it.

Chloe ends the book without revealing whether the hare has died. While it is possible that the creature was still living when she wrote the memoir, her decision to finish the narrative without resolution is ultimately grounded in the personal philosophy she developed as a result of living with the hare. Acceptance of both life’s ephemerality and the possibility that she might never have closure were key facets of what she learned from the hare. She does not provide readers with the “end” of the hare’s story as a way to mimic the experience of living with the wild creature. Like the author, readers are left with only one choice: to accept the possibility of an ending without knowing what that ending might be.