The eastern cottontail turns up in Maine less often than in almost any other state within its range: just 29 occurrence records, the smallest state tally the species has across the 40 states where it’s recorded.
At the cold edge of cottontail country
This rabbit favors brushy edges: fencerows, overgrown fields, and the ragged border between open ground and dense cover. Unbroken northern forest doesn’t offer much of that, so Maine’s records concentrate in the state’s southern coastal lowlands, in the farmland and suburban edges of York and Cumberland counties, where fields, hedgerows, and yards still create the mix of feeding ground and escape cover this rabbit needs.
Built to keep breeding, even here
A female eastern cottontail can be pregnant again within hours of giving birth, and Maine’s thin numbers still lean on that same fast reproduction that keeps the species common everywhere else in its range. Records climb sharply each spring and peak in June, tracking the season when litters are born in shallow, fur-lined nests scratched into grass and brush.
Status in Maine
Maine doesn’t list the eastern cottontail as introduced, so its records are treated as native to the state’s mapped range. Here, at the edge of the ground it can use, that classification comes with a caveat: this is a rabbit that does much better in warmer country well south and west of Maine, holding on more thinly at the cooler edge of what it can tolerate.
Full species profile
