Our native New England cottontail rabbit has lost so much habitat that it has become a candidate for the federal endangered species list. To protect the species before populations plummet dangerously, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has begun a set of initiatives to restore habitat for the cute little critter, and learn more about its population and movements.
SUNY-ESF students are getting in on the act by trapping and banding bunnies in order to track their movements, while land owners in the northeast are being encouraged to participate in a program where they clear portions of their property to form the brushy, thicketed young forest habitat that New England cottontails (along with a number of other species) thrive in.
To some, this may sound like forest loss. But in fact, a healthy forest environment includes tracts of wilderness that exist in diverse stages of growth. With the decline of small farms and the rise of suburbia in the past century, much of what used to be ‘young forest’ habitat has been cleared or left to grow into lower-density mature forest, which supports different plant and animal populations.
No! Not the buns!
It’s so weird how things can fall through the gaps. You see lots of fuzzy little rabbits around, and you don’t even notice they’re the wrong species. Bunch of people stop farming and suddenly it’s changed the ecosystem so that all the cute woodland critters have lost their habitat.
HEDGES. HEDGES WILL SAVE THE PLANET. Apparently. Hedges and sprinkling wildflower seeds along the edge of your property. You didn’t want to mow that extra bit of lawn anyway.
It’s weird how these things can happen under your nose. You see lots of buns, and it doesn’t even occur to you that they might not be the right kind.
And the farmland, too. You just kind of get to thinking that more trees/less people = good, and you don’t really think about the possibility that humans can be GOOD for the environment if we go about it the right way. And that, you know, maybe we went about it that way for so long because centuries of trial and error taught our ancestors the best way to cultivate land and keep it productive and healthy in the long term.
Helping find home for the New England cottontail