New England cottontail eyed for endangered-species status

Chances are, you’ve never seen a New England cottontail. This tiny brown rabbit just doesn’t fit into the modern Maine landscape of shopping malls and housing developments.

A hundred years ago, the cottontail inhabited grassy thickets from Kittery to Augusta. Bones found at archaeological digs along Penobscot Bay suggest the rabbit’s range might have extended up the coastline as far as Knox County.

The cottontail was so plentiful that rabbit stew earned a reputation as a popular New England dish, according to researchers. Historical town meeting reports talk of nuisance rabbit populations.

But today, New England cottontails are limited to a handful of sites, often scattered along the undeveloped Interstate 95 corridor into southern Maine.

It’s impossible to say exactly how many New England cottontails remain, but scientists recognize the signs of a species in trouble, said biologist Wally Jakubas, who heads up the wildlife division for the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife in Bangor.

The cottontail’s traditional habitat – brushy, shrubby forests north of New York and east of the Appalachians – has declined by 75 percent since the 1960s.

“It’s really questionable if the New England cottontail even exists in some states,” said Karen Morris, also a Maine state wildlife biologist.

In January, the New England office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Concord, N.H., will decide whether to begin a year of research to determine if the New England cottontail should be protected as an endangered species.

In 2000, a coalition of environmental groups petitioned the federal government, asking that the New England cottontail be considered for endangered status, but funds to pursue new listings just weren’t available because of a backlog of endangered-species lawsuits, said Diane Lynch, a biologist with the federal Fish and Wildlife Service.

Now that two years have passed, Lynch and her fellow biologists are in the midst of a 90-day review of cottontail data, and expect to announce sometime next month whether they will begin the yearlong endangered species listing process.

The cottontail is believed to be a victim of two of the major environmental problems of our time – sprawl and invasive species.

“If you look at the history of Maine, about 100 years ago a lot of farms went belly up, and that land reverted to forest. That was the heyday for the New England cottontail,” Jakubas said.

Today, that land between Augusta and Portland has been developed into some of the fastest-growing communities in Maine, and the cottontail’s traditional range has been badly fragmented. The few bunny-friendly “scrubby patches” that remain are often large enough to support only one or two rabbits, Morris said.

“Today, the cottontail is pretty much restricted to strips along highways, wetlands and old railroad beds,” Jakubas said. “Talk about being squeezed.”

In other New England states, a competing species called the Eastern cottontail was introduced to New England cottontail habitat in the 1930s, and has proved much more successful than its native cousin. A branch of the Piscataqua River seems to act as a barrier, keeping Eastern cottontails out of Maine, Morris said.

The Eastern cottontail has better eyesight and doesn’t need to hide from predators, so, like the white-tailed deer and countless other animals, it has adapted to a life in suburban back yards. The thickets that protect New England cottontails from owls, fox, bobcats, coyotes and other predators just aren’t considered attractive landscaping.

A recent study conducted by biologists from Maine and New Hampshire found New England cottontails at only 53 Maine sites in York and Cumberland counties; however, the Maine population is considered the healthiest in New England, primarily because of the Eastern cottontail’s absence.

Maine’s only other rabbit species is the snowshoe hare, which turns white in the winter and lives throughout the state. During the summer and fall, it is possible to confuse the hare and the cottontail, both small animals with brown fur.

Hunting is not thought to be a factor in the cottontail population’s decline, because of behavioral differences – the cottontails are so few and so good at hiding that hunters rarely shoot them, Jakubas said.

Biologists are considering plans to recolonize portions of the Maine coast with New England cottontails in an attempt to boost the breeding population. For instance, parts of the Rachel Carson National Wildlife refuge near Saco could be managed for rabbit habitat.

“I view Maine as a good hope, maybe a last hope, for the New England cottontail,” Jakubas said.