and young birch that support the New England cottontail and a host of other species that depend on the same type of habitat : songbirds , other mammals , reptiles and invertebrates .
At the center of this effort is the Great Thicket Refuge , a federal program established in 2016 with land in six states that preserves young successional forests — shrub lands that exist for about thirty years before the trees mature . In Rhode Island , the refuge includes a swath that curves with the coastline from North Kingstown to Westerly , where it could shore up the New England cottontail ’ s habitat . The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is also authorized to acquire up to 3,200 acres adjacent to existing conservation lands by purchasing easements or buying parcels outright from willing sellers .
“ This is a native species that has been here for eons of time . All those animals are a cog in the wheel of an ecosystem and study after study shows that the more diversity you have , the more robust the ecosystem ,” says Rhode Island National Wildlife Refuge Complex manager Charlie Vandemoer . “ We would much rather conserve habitat to avoid the need for listing .”
Passed into law in 1973 , the Endangered Species Act places restrictions on “ taking ” — killing , exporting or otherwise removing — a listed species , and on development in areas designated as critical habitat .
The New England cottontail had been considered for inclusion on the endangered species list after several conservation groups , including Defenders of Wildlife , petitioned the Department of the Interior in August 2000 . Defenders twice threatened to sue the agency for failing to respond in a timely manner before 2004 , when the agency agreed that the petition had enough merit to warrant formal consideration . In 2006 , the Fish and Wildlife Service determined the New England cottontail was a candidate for listing , but that other endangered species had greater priority .
Pulling a wide-ranging species back from the brink of extinction is arduous work , says Ya-Wei Li , a nationally recognized Endangered Species Act expert . “ It takes a lot of stakeholders at the table , it requires a lot of money and , most importantly , it really requires political will and
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