Bunny Business
In this column from our archives , Ellen Liberman explores the multi-state effort to save the New England cottontail rabbit .
In a small , low-slung building off the entrance of the Roger Williams Park Zoo , eleven presumably pregnant New England cottontails awaited a new generation — along with conservationists in six states . Each plastic-bottomed cage , stacked on tiered metal carts , bore an identification number for the female and the estimated due dates .
By late May , only one had given birth . She rested in a dark corner of her cage while a two-day-old kit , smaller than mouse , labored toward her through the bed of straw .
“ ‘ They breed like rabbits ’ is not exactly true in this case ,” says Lou Perrotti , Roger Williams Park Zoo ’ s director of conservation programs . “ They are very touchy creatures . It ’ s a tough battle to get a few out .”
A century ago , no one would sit around like an expectant father , cigars tucked in a breast pocket , hoping for healthy octuplets .
MIERCAT PHOTOGRAPHY / GETTY IMAGES
Sylvilagus transitionalis , otherwise known as the New England cottontail , ranged from Maine to eastern New York , favoring the river valleys , where regular landscape disturbances — beavers , wildfires , ice storms — created the thick , shrubby cover the species needs to survive .
But in the last sixty years , 85 percent of its habitat has disappeared , and with it , the New England cottontail . In 2011 , University of Rhode Island researchers studied rabbit pellets from 100 different locations in the state and found only one out of nearly 1,000 containing the DNA of a New England cottontail .
That tiny kit is another data point in a grand experiment to bring the New England cottontail back . It ’ s a multistate collaboration among federal and state agencies , universities , schools , nonprofit land trusts , private landowners and two zoos to recreate the dense tangles of greenbrier and chokeberry , switch grass
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