Virginia’s confirmed reports for the Appalachian cottontail sit almost entirely in the western mountains, clustered around the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests, Shenandoah National Park, and the ridges the Blue Ridge Parkway follows. That’s the state’s slice of the central Appalachians, where steep slopes and old disturbed ground create the patchy shrub cover this rabbit needs.
This rabbit depends on thick low growth rather than open woods. Rhododendron and mountain laurel thickets, storm-damaged patches, and regenerating clearcuts all provide the dense stems it uses to hide from foxes, bobcats, and owls. It feeds on grasses, blackberry, greenbrier, and mountain laurel, plus bark and twigs when green growth runs short, and rests in shallow forms tucked into that same cover instead of digging burrows.
Records here are thin, just 42 logged sightings, so gaps on the map probably say more about how easily this rabbit is mistaken for the more frequently recorded eastern cottontail than about true absence. Reports run year-round but cluster from May through July, when young rabbits and warmer weather put more animals in view.
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