Learning Something New Every Day

Eastern Cottontail - June 28, 2012

My first experience as a wildlife rehabilitator was caring for several litters of eastern cottontail bunnies. As I quickly learned, most bunnies (as high as 80%) do not reach maturity. Yet for a 20% survival rate, the eastern cottontail is a prolific wildlife species here in Michigan. During peak population periods, rabbit densities can be as high as 100 rabbits in a two-acre plot. (a)

So when I received an invitation to a webinar on the endangered New England Cottontail Rabbit, I must admit I was perplexed based on what I knew about rabbits in my own state. The webinar, sponsored by the Stewardship Network, a Michigan-based environmental organization (www.stewardshipnetwork.org), featured two wildlife specialists working on improving the population of New England Cottontails.

As with most threatened or endangered species, habitat destruction and fragmentation was the primary cause for the decline of the New England Cottontails. Unlike our eastern cottontails who have adapted to the quilt pattern of woody vegetation and open fields, the New England variety prefers early succession forest characterized by dense, tangled shrubbery as protection from predators. As the name implies, early succession forests are the first outgrowing of vegetation after a land disturbance as in the instances of fallow farmlands or utility-cleared rightaways. Over time the shrubs and pioneer trees (such as birch and quaking aspen) mature and die, replaced by longer-lived climax forests.  If a subsequent disturbance does not occur, such as fire, flooding or man-induced harvesting, the habitat needed by the New England Cottontail disappears and in time, the rabbit as well.

Federal, state and local governments in cooperation with universities, nonprofit organizations and landowners have developed conservation strategies to increase the overall population of the rabbit, keeping the New England Cottontail off the Endangered Species list. Some of the focus is on restoring and managing habitats that can sustain the rabbit population. Outreach and education to the community at large is always necessary especially when the cutting down of trees needed to create early succession ecosystems often meets with public resistance. One project of interest to me is the breeding program where young New England Cottontails are raised for future release into restored ecosystems.

It is opportunities like this webinar that remind me of the complexities of nature. As much as I scorned the cutting down of mature trees, there are wildlife and vegetation whose very existence is dependent upon the death and re-birth of forested areas. Interfering in the natural order of the wilderness always has its price.

(a)       Michigan Mammals, Rollin H. Baker, Michigan State University Press

Background Information:

New England Cottontail Rabbits, presented by The Stewardship Network. Featured speakers: Emma Carcagno, University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension  and Ted Kendziora, US Fish and Wildlife Service, December 12, 2012, http://www.stewardshipnetwork.org