Hares have short ears, rabbits have long ears.

We have snowshoe hares (varying hares) here and the odd bush bunny(smaller than an Eastern cotton tail rabbit) in the mountains. Those are protected still, I think - not many of them.
Not much better than the good, sweet and sour snowshoe bunny stew my bro used to make for the Rod and Gun Club's wild game banquet. My kids used to get "hyper" eating bunny or most any wild meat, especially deer or elk.

Back east in the Southern Ontario, we had European hares - large ones, 10 to 12 pounds about, along with cotton tail rabbits.
My dog got the Euro's and we ate the cotton tail rabbits.