The swamp rabbit is the most Louisiana of rabbits. Its 1271 records, among the heaviest for any mammal in the atlas, hug the wet lowlands: Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge and Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve near the coast, Grand Isle on the barrier islands, and the marsh parishes of Cameron, Vermilion, and Lafourche.
The rabbit that swims
The swamp rabbit is the state’s largest cottontail, a dark, coarse-furred animal of flooded bottomland, canebrake, and marsh edge that takes to water without hesitation, swimming between patches of cover or resting on a log above the flood. Sedges, cane, and other lush lowland growth make up most of its diet. Where that wet tangle rises into drier, open ground, the smaller eastern cottontail takes over.
A spring surge in the bottoms
Swamp rabbits are active all year, but Louisiana records jump in April and stay strong through May. Breeding begins in late winter and runs through the warm months, with several litters raised in dense low cover, and by spring the year’s young rabbits are feeding along brushy edges in the first and last light of day.
Status in Louisiana
NatureServe ranks the swamp rabbit S5, Secure, in Louisiana, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
