DOVER, N.H. (AP) – Public and private conservation efforts have helped the New England cottontail rebound to the point where it can be taken off the list of species under consideration for protection, the federal government said Friday.
The small, brown rabbit has been threatened by a loss of habitat throughout its range in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New York. It’s vanished from Vermont. It’s endangered in Maine and New Hampshire, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had been studying whether to list it under the federal Endangered Species Act.
The cottontail does best in tangled, low-growing shrubs in younger forests. The rabbit’s habitat is destroyed when forests mature and large trees replace small ones. Habitats also have been lost to development. Since the 1960s, the rabbit’s range contracted by 86 percent.
The New England cottontail is the only rabbit native to New England and east of the Hudson River in New York. It was named a candidate for Endangered Species Act protection in 2006 and, in 2008, state and federal biologists began working on conservation efforts.
The Fish and Wildlife Service estimates 10,500 New England cottontails now live in the area; the goal is 13,500 cottontails in healthy, young forests by 2030.