Eastern cottontails appear in 295 North Dakota records, and the map tilts noticeably east, with Cass, Grand Forks, and Walsh counties in the Red River valley holding the largest shares. Theodore Roosevelt National Park anchors a western tail of records, but this is mostly a rabbit of the state’s wooded river bottoms and settled edges.
An edge animal, not a burrower
Cottontails live where thick cover meets open feeding ground, in brushy field edges, shelterbelts, farmsteads, and river bottom thickets. Unlike most rabbits they never dig burrows of their own. The female scrapes a shallow nest depression in the grass and lines it with fur, and the young leave it in a matter of weeks, one reason a doe can raise several litters between spring and late summer. When flushed, a cottontail darts for the nearest shrub cover rather than racing across open ground the way a jackrabbit does, a habit that keeps it stitched to the brushy seams of the landscape.
Busy through the growing season
Rabbits stay active all winter, living on bark, twigs, and buds and sheltering in dense brush, and records turn up in every month. The strong peak from May through July matches the season when cover is lush, does are raising successive litters, and newly independent young rabbits are everywhere along the edges.
Status in North Dakota
NatureServe has not assigned the eastern cottontail a state rank in North Dakota, listing it as SNR, Unranked. The species is native to the state, and USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
