Maryland’s 4491 eastern cottontail records cover every county, running from the field edges of Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park on the Eastern Shore through suburban Montgomery County, which alone holds 1575, to Rocky Gap State Park in the western mountains.
An edge animal through and through
Cottontails live where cover meets open feeding ground, in brushy fencerows, old fields, powerline cuts, gardens, and young woods, and they rarely stray far from a thicket they can bolt into. They eat grasses and clover through the growing season and switch to bark, twigs, and buds in winter, which keeps them active above the snow all year instead of sheltering underground.
A summer measured in litters
The record builds through April and crests in May and June at close to a thousand records a month, tracking the breeding season. A female cottontail raises several litters a year, each in a shallow, fur-lined nest scraped into open ground, and by early summer inexperienced young rabbits are sitting in plain view along lawn edges and trail margins across the state.
Status in Maryland
NatureServe ranks the eastern cottontail S5, Secure, in Maryland, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
