The eastern cottontail is Louisiana’s rabbit of the open ground. Its 499 records spread from Caddo Parish in the northwest across the central parishes to St. Tammany in the east, with Kisatchie National Forest and Bogue Chitto State Park among the named places where it turns up.
The edge rabbit, not the swamp rabbit
Louisiana holds two native cottontails, and they split the state by moisture. The swamp rabbit keeps to flooded bottomland and cane tangles, while the eastern cottontail works the drier side: grassy field edges, brushy fencerows, overgrown clearings, and open pine understory. It is the smaller of the two and the one most likely to flush from a weed-grown pasture corner or a roadside verge.
A long breeding season on green growth
Cottontails do not hibernate, and in Louisiana’s climate they breed from early spring well into summer, raising several litters in shallow, grass-lined nests scraped into open ground. Records climb from April through July, when young rabbits are out feeding on fresh growth in the low light of morning and evening, then ease off through the fall.
Status in Louisiana
NatureServe ranks the eastern cottontail S5, Secure, in Louisiana, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
