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Defenders Magazine
On the Ground: Rabbit, Run
Angie Chessey took a long step over a stone wall, bent low under a pine branch and pushed her way through dense shrubs. Barberry thorns scratched across her brown U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service parka. The snow fall from two days ago still clung to the bushes. Winding her way into a dense knot of brush in a far corner of the overgrown field—the perfect place for small, furry mammals to hide—she pleaded: "Come on guys."
A contract biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service, Chessey is one of five others scouring a small section of the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Maine for the tracks or fecal pellets of the New England cottontail. This animal is considered endangered in the state of Maine and was found worthy of federal protection under the Endangered Species Act, but it has been wait-listed because of a lack of funds.
The only cottontail native to New England, it thrives in thickets, particularly the nearly impenetrable tangle of shrubs, vines and grasses that develop five to 25 years after a forest disturbance, such as a hurricane, fire, logging or flooding by beavers. But today, with its disappearance from 75 percent of its former range, the New England cottontail is in trouble.
Habitat loss is the main problem. Also, in many places the native rabbit has been replaced by the eastern cottontail, a species introduced from the Southeast earlier last century and more suited to the suburban environment now prevalent in the region. Like the more common and familiar eastern cottontail, New England cottontails are small rabbits with gray-brown fur and a small, white tail. Although the behavior and habitat needs of both cottontails differ significantly, they are similar in appearance except for a black spot on the top of the New England cottontails' head and the black edging on their stout ears and their smaller size.
So far, Maine is the only state in the region where eastern cottontails are not found. This makes life easier for Chessey and other scientists, who would otherwise need DNA to tell the two species apart, and for New England cottontails, which face extinction in locations when eastern cottontails out-compete them for food.
To protect the species in the state, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife plans to establish 18 core habitats of at least 25 acres each, says Judy Camuso, an assistant regional wildlife biologist with the department. Since those core habitats are best placed where there are already New England cottontails, the state and the Fish and Wildlife Service are investigating historical sites and current cottontail sightings. But because thickets grow back to forest in just a few decades in the Northeast, finding New England cottontails is a shell game: The habitats are always shifting.
That is why the members of the search team were hopeful when, the week before, another of the team's biologists had found a bit of cottontail fur, tracks and a pellet at the edge of a field in the Carson refuge. The field could serve as a bridge between two of the known cottontail habitats in the refuge, offering the cottontails more choices for mates, food and shelter.
But today, the biologists fanning the field looking for signs found nothing. "Normally, if you can walk through it, it's not good habitat for New England cottontail," says Kate O'Brien, a wildlife biologist at the refuge. Standing on the edge of the field, O'Brien explains that for the cottontail, large stands of dense cover mean protection from predators such as hawks and foxes. These days the available habitat always seems to be too thin in cover and too small. "This is the plight of the cottontail," she says, suspecting that the cottontail the scientist had found a sign of last week was picked off by a predator as it crossed the field. As she spoke, a large, dark bird soared overhead. It was a raven, but it made her point.
To make the brush-cover more suitable for New England cottontails in parts of the Carson refuge, last year Defenders of Wildlife's Earth Friends Wild Species Fund provided $5,000 to the project, which allowed a restoration coordinator to work a longer season and provided 300 native shrubs that were planted in the refuge by Defenders' Wildlife Volunteer Corps. Additional Defenders' volunteers are helping scientists survey the dozens of potential New England cottontail habitat sites.
But the rabbits remain elusive. Logging more than 40 hours in her search, Chessey has seen plenty of tracks and pellets, but she has yet to see a live rabbit—despite her pleas to them out in the field. This shyness is frustrating for those who want to conserve them.
Yet one thing is apparent, says O'Brien. The cottontails are captivating. "When people do see one, they want to help," she says.
Learn more about the National Wildlife Refuge System.
