New England Cottontail Conservation
The New England cottontail is the only cottontail rabbit native to New England. Sadly, it has lost as much as 75% of its range in recent decades. This is largely due to the loss of its thicket and young successional stage forest habitat, as abandoned farms across the region have seen their forests grow and mature in the last century. Combined with very high white-tailed deer density and the resulting heavy browsing that keeps the understory thickets down, this shy and furtive rabbit’s cover is rapidly disappearing. It’s relative the eastern cottontail, introduced into the region for hunting purposes, is a much better generalist when it comes to habitat use, and it is outcompeting the New England cottontail in many areas.
Roger Williams Park Zoo helped initiate the New England Cottontail Captive Breeding Working Group, which now consist of zoos, state and federal agencies, and universities. They are captive breeding and reintroducing New England cottontails to a number of sites that they believe still contain good habitat for the species. Results so far look promising, and this year Zoo New England has joined the Working Group to stage captive-bred cottontails before they are released. You can sometimes see these young rabbits at Franklin Park Zoo at certain times of the year before they are released back into the wild!
