CeresNature: Disappearing Rabbit Trick

Sleeping In The Forest

I thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the riverbed, nothing between me and the white fire of the stars but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees. All night I heard the small kingdoms breathing around me, the insects, and the birds who do their work in the darkness. All night I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling with a luminous doom. By morning I had vanished at least a dozen times into something better.

-Mary Oliver

The Swan

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river? Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air - an armful of white blossoms, a perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies, biting the air with its black beak? Did you hear it, fluting and whistling a shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall knifing down the black ledges? And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds - a white cross streaming across the sky, its feet like black leaves, its wings like the stretching light of the river? And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything? And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for? And have you changed your life?

- Mary Oliver

2.10.2009

Disappearing Rabbit Trick

New England Cottontail

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Reading the endangered wildlife list last month prompted a research mission to find out what the most threatened species might be in Massachusetts. I learned that the New England cottontail is very close to making the federal endangered list. In the summertime, I see rabbits galore on my early morning commute to work; one road in particular I have dubbed ‘bunny lane’, where I have to play dodge the rabbit! Therefore, it is surprising to consider rabbits as a threatened species, particularly with their reputation for prolific breeding.

In our region, we have two types of rabbits: the New England cottontail (Sylvilagus transitionalis) and the Eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus). They are so similar that most people cannot tell them apart; the one we see in abundance is the Eastern cottontail, common across the United States. The New England cottontail, smaller than the Eastern, is disappearing. Its’ populations are declining, and their range has shrunk by more than seventy-five percent. In Vermont, its’ numbers are so greatly diminished, it can no longer be found, and New Hampshire added it to the state’s list of endangered species in 2008. Data provided by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service found that there was “substantial need for protection of the New England cottontail under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.” It was further determined that federal listing was warranted, however precluded due to other listing priorities; the rabbit remains listed as a special concern.

The New England cottontail prefers land in transition between field and forest, full of brambles and low bushes. Thickets were common on farmland and these rabbits once thrived, but much of New England now consists of mature forests, or developed land, which do not have the undergrowth that sustains and protects them. The Eastern cottontail population is strong because it is a hardier rabbit and lives on plants indicative of open land such as old fields and meadows. Part of any restoration project to save the rabbits might be getting private landowners to agree to cut their woodlands and let them turn into thickets. Halting the decline of scrub and brush land will be paramount to saving the New England cottontail; if it is not brought back, the region will lose a species native to no where else in the world!

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2.10.2009

Disappearing Rabbit Trick

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