Mountain cottontails are well spread across western Montana, 453 records reaching from Gallatin and Park counties through the Missoula and Bitterroot valleys and down into Beaverhead. Gallatin National Forest holds the single largest cluster, with smaller groupings around Bannack State Park and the fishing access sites along valley rivers.
The upland cottontail
Where the desert cottontail sticks to hot, dry lowland brush, the mountain cottontail takes the higher, rockier ground: sagebrush benches, juniper slopes, and the brushy edges of mountain valleys. Unusually among cottontails, it readily uses burrows and rocky dens for cover, a habit that suits country with long winters. It feeds on grasses and forbs in summer and switches to sagebrush, bark, and twigs through the cold months.
A breeding-season crest
Records run in every month but crest from May through July, when does are raising their first litters and both adults and new young spend long hours feeding in the open at dawn and dusk. By late summer the counts settle back, even though the rabbits themselves stay active all winter.
Status in Montana
NatureServe ranks the mountain cottontail S5, Secure, in Montana, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
