The eastern cottontail is not an Oregon native. It comes from east of the Rockies and was released in the Pacific Northwest as a game animal, and its 476 Oregon records show where it took hold: Multnomah County with 265, Benton with 124, and Clackamas with 50, a tight cluster across the settled Willamette Valley and Portland lowlands.
A rabbit of farms and field edges
Cottontails need a mix of open grazing ground and close cover, the brushy fencerows, overgrown ditches, and bramble patches that farms and suburbs supply in abundance. They do not dig burrows, hiding instead in surface forms and raising their young in fur-lined nests scratched into the ground. Oregon’s record fits that template, anchored by the E.E. Wilson Wildlife Area near Corvallis and the Sauvie Island Wildlife Area where the Willamette meets the Columbia.
Breeding through the green months
Cottontails raise several litters a year, and young rabbits leave the nest at just a few weeks old. Oregon’s counts climb steeply in March, crest in April and May, and stay strong into July, tracking the months when breeding adults and naive young are most visible, then slide to a low murmur by December.
Status in Oregon
NatureServe marks the eastern cottontail SNA in Oregon, not ranked, because the species is exotic in the state. Its established range here remains centered on the lowlands where it was introduced.
Full species profile
