Hippity-hop-hop. Researchers in America’s Northeast want to bring back the rabbit. But not just any rabbit. Scientists are working to boost a dwindling population of New England cottontails.
The New England cottontail isn’t the same bunny that chewed up Mr. McGregor’s garden. Nor is it the soft brown, clover-chewing critter that’s common across most of the eastern half of the continental United States. Eastern cottontails have larger eyes. Their young, called kits, have a white dot on their furry little foreheads. They are so plentiful that some people question why anyone needs to build the numbers of the New England variety. They don’t realize the two are separate species.
Since 1960, the New England cottontail has seen its numbers drop. That’s mostly due to habitat loss. Some people claim the problem is human development: Roads, shopping centers, and housing developments are popping up everywhere. But human interference in the form of preventing natural wildfires and floods has chewed up the bunny’s peaceful habitat too.
Scientists are working to restore about 1,000 acres of young forests and thickets in New Hampshire. New England rabbits favor those brushy habitats for food and shelter.
Another effort to replenish the rare New England rabbit involves bunny breeding. Lou Perrotti is director of conservation programs for the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Rhode Island. He launched the cottontail breeding and release program there.
At first Perrotti didn’t know what to expect. “They stress out really easily,” he says. He was afraid the bunnies wouldn’t bring kits into the captive zoo world. But they did.
The zoo began releasing its rabbits to multiple sites in Rhode Island and New Hampshire. Since then the population in those areas has doubled.
So far, about 140 kits have been bred in captivity and released into the wild. New Hampshire and Rhode Island have released rabbits. A Maine release is pending state approval.
Breeders hope to release about 500 New England cottontails per year into the farms and fields of New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Maine.
Rabbit reintroduction is a first for New England. But wildlife agencies around the country are turning more and more to these programs. The plans can stabilize or bolster dwindling endangered species populations.
At the Bellamy River Wildlife Management Area in New Hampshire, the New England cottontails are flourishing. Officials recently released two dozen hopping critters. The bunnies soon spread to another location on the site. They’re reproducing like . . . well, rabbits.
