Ohio’s eastern cottontail record is one of the deepest in the atlas, 7,103 records from 86 counties, led by Franklin, Cuyahoga, and Summit. Only a couple of mammals are recorded more often in the state.
An edge animal in a patchwork state
Cottontails live where open, grassy ground sits next to thick cover: meadow edges, hedgerows, brushy fencerows, overgrown ditches, and the rough margins of parks and yards. Ohio’s quilt of farms, suburbs, and small woodlots is close to ideal. Records gather at Cuyahoga Valley National Park and Maumee Bay State Park, along the Lake Erie marshes at Magee Marsh and Sheldon Marsh, and south into Wayne National Forest. Unlike many rabbits, the cottontail does not dig a burrow; it rests in a shallow depression called a form and raises its young in a grass-lined nest hidden in plain sight.
A breeding season written into the calendar
The record jumps sharply from March to April and crests in May and June, holding high through July. That is the breeding season showing through: cottontails raise litter after litter from early spring into late summer, and by May the first young rabbits are out on their own, small, careless, and easy to spot. Cottontails stay active all winter, but snow-covered ground and short days keep the cold-month counts low.
Status in Ohio
NatureServe lists the eastern cottontail as SNR, unranked, in Ohio. The species is native to the state, is not listed as nonindigenous by USGS NAS, and holds a global rank of G5, Secure, with an IUCN assessment of Least Concern.
Full species profile
