With 9,280 records, the eastern cottontail is one of the three most-reported mammals in New York, and its stronghold is the state’s settled edge. Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island top the list, followed by Tompkins, Westchester, and Monroe, a map of lawns, old fields, and hedgerows rather than deep woods.
An edge animal that never digs in
Unlike most rabbits, a cottontail does not burrow. It rests by day in a shallow depression called a form and survives by staying within a quick dash of dense cover: brush piles, shrub rows, tall grass, the tangles of the Long Island Pine Barrens and Jamaica Bay’s upland edges. Summer brings grasses and clover to the menu, while winter shifts it to twigs, buds, and bark, which is why hedgerowed Finger Lakes farmland suits it in every season.
The spring surge is a breeding surge
Reports climb sharply in April and hold high from May through July. Cottontails raise several litters a year in fur-lined nests scratched into open ground, and by early summer females are nursing one litter while carrying the next, with naive young dispersing across lawns and park edges. The species stays active all winter, keeping close to cover.
Status in New York
NatureServe ranks the eastern cottontail S5, Secure, and the species is native across New York. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous in the state.
Full species profile
