Peter’s Peril: New England Cottontail Facing Extinction

220px-New_England_cottontailDespite the rain, Easter was a smashing success at the Turley house including a soggy but fun neighborhood Easter Egg hunt around our house. Environmentalists however are hoping that these good feelings could translate into some support to save the erstwhile mascot of the holiday: the New England cottontail. The rabbit species faces potential extinction because its needed scrub land is being eradicated by many of those same Easter-loving humans.


The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has partnered with state agencies and private organizations from Maine to New York to restore the natural habitat of the New England cottontail.

When Massachusetts author Thornton Burgess wrote “The Adventures of Peter Cottontail,” the rabbits were common and plentiful in New England. However, in just the last 50 years, more than 80 percent of their habitat has disappeared. It is not only the cottontail that has suffered of course. However, environmentalists are hoping that runaway development can be curbed before Easter is represented by a symbol of man’s folly and damage to the environment around him. At that point, the entire species will be a myth.

Source: Wall Street Journal

17 thoughts on “Peter’s Peril: New England Cottontail Facing Extinction”

  1. “We are on the edge of a mass extinction event that will make the previous ones look insignificant. ”

    Have you ever looked at the numbers on well known extinction events? Because we’re talking about upwards of 70% of species going extinct. At the end of the Permian, something around 90% of species stopped existing, That’s never going to be “insignificant.”

    Which is just to say, things are bad, and they may even be extinction event bad, but making up facts because your side’s right is never a good policy. Especially when your side REALLY is right, and you don’t need to make up facts.

  2. nick spinelli 1, April 1, 2013 at 5:17 pm

    Dredd, I agree w/ you. I grew up in Ct. and people believed the Georges Bank would never run out of cod. They were wrong. However, there’s a reason I doubt rabbits will ever be endangered. Because there’s a reason for the very old phrase, “F@cks like a rabbit.” Rabbits have taken over my neighborhood. I can’t plant green beans because of them.
    ==============================================
    Yep.

    There is a time to eat rabbit and a time not to,
    a time to eat cod and a time not to,
    a time to “F@cks like a rabbit.”,
    and a time not to.

    I think a jury of our peers knows that and agrees with us.

    We got a way high up problem here … not a problem from the boots on the ground.

  3. Dredd, I agree w/ you. I grew up in Ct. and people believed the Georges Bank would never run out of cod. They were wrong. However, there’s a reason I doubt rabbits will ever be endangered. Because there’s a reason for the very old phrase, “F@cks like a rabbit.” Rabbits have taken over my neighborhood. I can’t plant green beans because of them.

  4. nick spinelli 1, April 1, 2013 at 2:57 pm

    Rabbit is one of the leanest meats you can eat, ans delicious. My Italian family ate a lot of rabbits growing up in Ct. So, I accept this speciesism and like those consumed w/ white guilt, I and my family are willing to make reparations to the New England rabbits. But, first allow me to finish my favorite Italian stew made w/ rabbit, tomatoes, peppers and onions along w/ “Some fava beans and a nice chianti.”
    =================================
    It isn’t what civilization eats that matters predominantly, it is whether they are eating so much of one thing that it is destroying that species.

    The birth rate, standard population dynamics, and the like will tell if the food is being “over-fished” or “over-harvested” and the like.

    Civilization “eating” and civilization “destroying” are two different things in a sane civilization.

    Yes, good rabbit is good rabbit (and likely safer than beef now).

    Discernment is good with or without salt.

  5. Rabbit is one of the leanest meats you can eat, ans delicious. My Italian family ate a lot of rabbits growing up in Ct. So, I accept this speciesism and like those consumed w/ white guilt, I and my family are willing to make reparations to the New England rabbits. But, first allow me to finish my favorite Italian stew made w/ rabbit, tomatoes, peppers and onions along w/ “Some fava beans and a nice chianti.”

  6. lottakatz 1, April 1, 2013 at 10:50 am

    Dredd, Thanks so much for the link to the article regarding the bees, such action is long overdue.
    ============================================
    And if too late, we will “hear” about it:

    It has been stated by several biologists that, if it were not for the honey bee pollinating plants, humans would only last 3 or 4 years as our food supply would disappear.

    (Bee Celestial Navigation and Non-Human Intelligence, Space Dot Com). I have researched this some, and the better translation of the data is that four years after the last bee dies civilization will begin to degenerate rapidly (Will We Destroy Food – The Bees?). Easter bunny fairy tales notwithstanding.

  7. Sorry, I know this is serious but the immediate thought that occurred to me was trying to relocate them to Australia where they might thrive.

  8. Dredd, Thanks so much for the link to the article regarding the bees, such action is long overdue.

  9. It would be helpful if you people actually read the source article (and if JT didn’t cherry pick the details).

    Quote: “But in an uncommon turn of events, it is declining human activity to blame for its lost habitat — not urban sprawl.

    As neglected agricultural lands reverted back to forest and those forests matured, the population of New England cottontails thinned.”

    So it, the return of mature forests that is causing this change, NOT suburban sprawl or development, etc. What is not addressed in the article is what the population of this species was, say, 300-400 years ago. I’m not certain of the make up of that part of the country at that time, but I’m betting that it was more heavily forested. I’m not even sure of how long this particular species has been there. I may do some more research into this, as this kind of thing interests me.

    So what point in history represents the ideal in terms of the population of species and how much forest there is, etc? Should we intervene in nature (at great expense and possibly unintended consequences) just to keep things as we remember them in the last few generations? That’s a fools errand.

    And oh, by the way, the Eastern Cottontail is thriving, and is almost indistinguishable from the NE Cottontail (the source article, Wikipedia, and more sources). They’re more adaptable and therefore have thrived. Sounds a lot like natural selection to me. And they’re not some kind of invasive species that causes problems. So no, we’re not going to be without rabbits.

    Believe me, I’m a nature lover. But I also like to be a rational, objective thinker. And this post reeks of emotional knee jerk-ism. And is short on the facts. And many people here swallowed it hook, line and sinker due to their preconceptions and inherent biases.

  10. First they came for the rabbits,
    and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a rabbit.

    Then they came for the bees,
    and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a bee.

    Then they came for the polar bears,
    and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a polar bear.

    Then they came for the birds, making these extinct:

    King Island Emu, Elephant Bird, Upland Moa, Kangaroo Island Emu, West Coast Spotted Kiwi, Labrador Duck, Korean Crested Shelduck, Réunion Shelduck, Mauritian Shelduck, Amsterdam Island Duck, Saint Paul Island Duck, Mauritian Duck, Mariana Mallard, Finsch’s Duck, Pink-headed Duck, Réunion Pochard, Auckland Islands Merganser, New Zealand Quail, The Double-banded Argus, The Pile-builder Megapode, The Viti Levu Scrubfowl, Raoul Island Scrubfowl, Himalayan Quail, Great Auk, Javanese Lapwing, Tahitian Sandpiper, White-winged Sandpiper, Eskimo Curlew, Slender-billed Curlew, Canarian Black Oystercatcher, Leguat’s Giant, Tahitian Red-billed Rail, Antillean Cave-rail, Hawkins’ Rail, Red Rail, Rodrigues Rail, Bar-winged Rail, New Caledonian Rail, Wake Island Rail, Tahiti Rail, Dieffenbach’s Rail, Vava’u Rail, The Norfolk Island Rail, Chatham Rail, Réunion Rail or Dubois’s Wood-rail, Ascension Flightless Crake, Saint Helena Crake, Laysan Rail, Hawaiian Rail, Kosrae Island Crake, Miller’s Rail, Saint Helena Swamphen, Lord Howe Swamphen, Réunion Swamphen or Oiseau bleu, Marquesas Swamphen, The North Island Takahē, New Caledonia Swamphen, Samoan Wood Rail, Makira Wood Rail, Tristan Moorhen, Mascarene Coot, Fernando de Noronha Rail, Tahitian “Goose”, Bokaak “Bustard”, Colombian Grebe, Alaotra Grebe, Atitlán Grebe, Bermuda Night Heron, Réunion Night Heron, Mauritius Night Heron, Rodrigues Night Heron, Ascension Night Heron, New Zealand Little Bittern, Réunion Sacred Ibis, Spectacled Cormorant, Small Saint Helena Petrel, Bermuda Shearwater, Large Saint Helena Petrel, Jamaica Petrel, Guadalupe Storm-petrel, The Chatham Islands Penguin, Saint Helena Dove, Passenger Pigeon, Bonin Woodpigeon, Ryukyu Woodpigeon, Réunion Pink Pigeon, Rodrigues Turtle-dove, Liverpool Pigeon, Sulu Bleeding-heart, Norfolk Island Ground-dove, Tanna Ground-dove, Thick-billed Ground-dove, Choiseul Crested Pigeon, Red-moustached Fruit-dove, Mauritius Blue Pigeon, Rodrigues Grey Pigeon, New Caledonian Lorikeet, Society Parakeet, Black-fronted Parakeet, Paradise Parrot, The Oceanic Eclectus Parrot, Seychelles Parakeet, Newton’s Parakeet, Thirioux’s Grey Parrot, Mascarene Parrot, Broad-billed Parrot, Rodrigues Parrot, Glaucous Macaw, Cuban Red Macaw, Carolina Parakeet, Guadeloupe Parakeet, Martinique Amazon, Guadeloupe Amazon, Guadalupe Caracara, Réunion Owl, Mauritius Owl, Rodrigues Owl, New Caledonian Boobook, Laughing Owl, The Puerto Rican Barn-owl, The Bahaman Barn-owl, Siau Scops-owl, Jamaican Pauraque, Cuban Pauraque, Vaurie’s Nightjar, Coppery Thorntail, Brace’s Emerald, Gould’s Emerald, Bogota Sunangel, Turquoise-throated Puffleg, Ryūkyū Kingfisher, Giant Hoopoe, Imperial Woodpecker, Stephens Island Wren, Bush Wren, Táchira Antpitta, Kioea, Chatham Island Bellbird, Lord Howe Gerygone, Mangarevan Whistler, Maupiti Monarch, Nuku Hiva Monarch, Ua Pou Monarch, Guam Flycatcher, Short-toed Nuthatch Vanga, North Island Piopio, South Island Piopio, White-eyed River Martin, Red Sea Swallow, Moorea Reed-warbler, Rueck’s Blue Flycatcher, Chatham Islands Fernbird, Tana River Cisticola, Lord Howe White-eye, Black-browed Babbler, Rodrigues Bulbul, Aldabra Brush-warbler, Rodrigues “Babbler”, Kosrae Island Starling, Mysterious Starling, Tasman Starling, Pohnpei Starling, Bay Starling, Bourbon Crested Starling, Rodrigues Starling, Grand Cayman Thrush, Bonin Thrush, Cozumel Thrasher, Black-lored Waxbill, Slender-billed Grackle, Bachman’s Warbler, Semper’s Warbler, Réunion Fody, Tawny-headed Mountain Finch, Bonin Grosbeak, Lanaʻi Hookbill, Pila’s Palila, Lesser Koa Finch, Greater Koa Finch, Kona Grosbeak, Greater ʻAmakihi, Nukupuʻu, Hawaiʻi ʻAkialoa or Lesser ʻAkialoa, Greater ʻAkialoa …

    (On The Memorial Daze). But was not a bird, so I kept having fun.

    Then they indiscriminately came after 200 species per day,
    but since my species was not one of them yet …

    Then they came for civilization itself,
    and there was no one left to speak for me.

  11. Those people in New England should have stayed in England. They are so greedy. The land is not enough for them Nothing like forty acres and a mule is good enough. No. They have to have the scrub land too.

  12. Development knows no bounds. Our leaders see no downside to development becuase it pours billions into the pockets of their friends and benefactors. The damage it does to any species including humans and cottontails makes no difference. You need look no further than NYC to see the voracious movement of developers and their fawning worshipers. In city and in town no plot of ground is hallowed enough to avoid the developers’ grasp.

    “You don’t know what you got til its gone. Paved paradise to put up a parking lot.”

  13. Will humans give up automobiles, coal-fired plants, and Walmart?…NO
    The 6th Mass Extinction will continue apace until the apex predator, Man, is pulled down into the dark abyss of.self-annihilation.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfGMYdalClU

    That’s right… global climate change is not real, America is not a war-mongering nation, and Capitalism is not eating the planet.

    So continue eating your cheese burger and watching your reality TV…all is well.

  14. I agree raff….. But as Elaine is all to aware… They have the peeps…. They will last forever…

  15. We are on the edge of a mass extinction event that will make the previous ones look insignificant. We have done the job quiet well by making the environment uninhabitable for more and more species. If we can manage to kill off the honeybees we can speed the entire process along by several decades.

    But we’ll keep playing as if there is no threat. Big money will continue to flow to the poison ideas that convince enough people that everything is OK or at least will only be worse if we take action against our destruction or its not our fault & ther is nothing we can do.

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