The first Easter bunnies around here were probably New England cottontails, a unique species found only in New England. They look so much like the more widespread eastern cottontail that trained scientists may have their doubts as to which species they are holding, even as they cradle the bunny in question in their hands. But there are differences between the two species, significant differences, enough that the cottontails can certainly tell themselves apart.
At the end of the 1800s, when the now common Easter traditions of colored eggs and candy delivered by the Easter bunny were just becoming widespread in America, there was only one species of cottontail rabbit in New England: the New England cottontail. Like the traditions, the New England cottontail was new, too, at least to humans: it was first recognized as a species distinct from the eastern cottontail in 1895.
At that time, the New England cottontail ranged throughout most of New England, from Connecticut and Rhode Island on north. It was found throughout the Champlain Valley and into southern New Hampshire and Maine. The region we now consider the Upper Valley was as far north as it was found along the Connecticut River.
The only other rabbit-like creature in northern New England at the time was the snowshoe hare. Actually, snowshoe hares and New England cottontails have a lot in common. They are both woodland animals. They both prefer the safety of good cover over any delicacy, including the carrots in your garden. They both look for that cover among shrubs and densely growing saplings – a habitat known as a thicket.
From the 1920s through the 1950s, state wildlife agencies and private hunting clubs brought eastern cottontails from Kansas, Missouri, and Texas into southern New England to increase rabbit numbers for hunting. The eastern cottontail (ironically named, given that it came from the Midwest) quickly adapted to New England. It spread into northern New England and became common. Meanwhile, the New England cottontail faltered.
It’s easy to imagine that the eastern cottontail simply pushed the New England cottontail out of desirable habitats, but studies by John Litvaitis, a University of New Hampshire professor who has studied the New England cottontail extensively, paint a more subtle picture.
While the two species look very much alike to us, Litvaitis’s DNA studies show they can’t interbreed. When New England cottontails and eastern cottontails duke it out for territory, the New England cottontail wins about half the time, his studies show. So eastern cottontails are neither breeding out nor evicting the natives from their home turf. But that turf has changed since the eastern cottontails came to town. At the turn of the last century, many New England farms had been abandoned, and thickets grew on the former agricultural lands, creating the perfect habitat for New England cottontails.
By the time eastern cottontails became well established in the region, those thickets had matured into forests. There were fewer thickets for either species of cottontail. Another study by Litvaitis showed that eastern cottontails can spot a predator from twice the distance that a New England cottontail can. This may be why eastern cottontails are more willing to go out in the open, to travel farther from cover than New England cottontails, and to live in thickets that aren’t as dense as they were a century ago.
These days, that cottontail boldly munching on the lettuce in your garden or hunkering in the middle of your front lawn at dusk is almost certainly an eastern cottontail. It seems the eastern cottontail simply makes better use of the modern New England landscape we have created than the native New England cottontail does.
Fewer and smaller thickets, more-mature forests, and more lawns have created hard times for the New England cottontail. There was once a healthy population in the Keene, Walpole, and Westmoreland region of New Hampshire, for example, but the last time Litvaitis checked, he found none. Litvaitis estimates there are only about 2,500 New England cottontails left. (A very rough estimate because the numbers change so much from year to year.)
Last fall, two areas in southeastern New Hampshire were closed to cottontail hunting in an attempt to protect one of the species’ last strongholds. Vermont didn’t need a similar precaution because no New England cottontails have been seen there since 1990.
The situation for the New England cottontail is so dire that it is being considered for threatened or endangered species status under the federal Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is now analyzing information about our native cottontail in a year-long status review. A decision is expected next fall.
The hope is that with the right conservation measures, the New England cottontail will be hopping down the Bunny Trail for many Easters to come.