Back yard critters
- Thread starter cany
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Did you stomp its head?
CELLFISH
Well-Known Angler
baby stroller did it… got stick moved it out of the way… i got a thanks… cell…
Well not in my backyard, at least yet. I do see the occasional snowshoe hare, even had a baby hanging around the filleting board this past spring. I know how much you "love" little rabbits munching on your landscaping. Maybe I'll be complaining soon too???
The New England cottontail is a vulnerable species. The zoo is doing its best to breed more of them.
Somewhere in Maine — in a park across the water from New Hampshire and also in a wildlife refuge about 25 miles away — are rabbits that were bred and born in Queens.
“Bred and born” — not “born and bred” — puts the emphasis where it matters, because the point of this story is that they had to be bred. Zoologists say that not all rabbits reproduce prolifically despite the cliché “breed like rabbits.” There are vulnerable species that are not considered endangered but that could die out if they do not have some help with what zoologists politely call courtship.
The New England cottontail is one such species.
The help has come from the Queens Zoo, in a combination of “Let’s Make a Deal,” “The Dating Game” and “The Bachelor” or “The Bachelorette” that is unlikely to end up in prime time. There are video cameras in the zoo’s breeding area, which has different doorways that a female rabbit can decide to go through — and a male rabbit waiting on the other side of each.
But the cameras almost never catch the rabbit-world equivalent of the extended make-out sessions that reality television lives for. Donna-Mae Butcher, the assistant curator of animals at the Queens Zoo, said that the rabbits “move so quickly, it’s like a flash.” Often the best indication that something happened is morning-after evidence — tufts of hair on the floor, she said.
New England cottontails may have hopped across the five boroughs in the past, but they moved on as the city grew and spread out and the remaining forests and farmland were cleared away. Their numbers dwindled throughout the Northeast: The zoo says the New England cottontail population has shrunk by more than 80 percent since the 1960s. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation puts their status in a category of “special concern,” while New Hampshire and Maine list them as endangered. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considered listing them under the federal Endangered Species Act in the early 2000s but decided not to.
The Eastern cottontail was brought to the Northeast from Missouri in the 1930s “primarily to benefit hunters when the native cottontail populations began to decline,” according to the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence, R.I., which began the rabbit repopulation program that the Queens Zoo joined nine years ago.
Since then, the zoo has bred 145 New England cottontails. This summer, 15 youngsters were bred at the Queens Zoo and sent to Maine and Massachusetts after little or no interaction with people, the better to ensure that they would take to the wild when they were released.
There is a protocol for the zoo’s staff when there is a pregnancy: no talking. “You turn your radios down,” Butcher said. The rabbits “are used to normal forest sounds, and we’ve brought them into Queens. They’re used to noises, but not these noises. You have to be conscious how loud you’re speaking and to not drop a rake on the floor. It sends these little things into a panic.”
How the Queens Zoo Is Helping to Save a New England Rabbit
The New England cottontail is a vulnerable species. The zoo is doing its best to breed more of them.
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United States Fish and Wildlife Service
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United States Fish and Wildlife Service
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Somewhere in Maine — in a park across the water from New Hampshire and also in a wildlife refuge about 25 miles away — are rabbits that were bred and born in Queens.
“Bred and born” — not “born and bred” — puts the emphasis where it matters, because the point of this story is that they had to be bred. Zoologists say that not all rabbits reproduce prolifically despite the cliché “breed like rabbits.” There are vulnerable species that are not considered endangered but that could die out if they do not have some help with what zoologists politely call courtship.
The New England cottontail is one such species.
The help has come from the Queens Zoo, in a combination of “Let’s Make a Deal,” “The Dating Game” and “The Bachelor” or “The Bachelorette” that is unlikely to end up in prime time. There are video cameras in the zoo’s breeding area, which has different doorways that a female rabbit can decide to go through — and a male rabbit waiting on the other side of each.
But the cameras almost never catch the rabbit-world equivalent of the extended make-out sessions that reality television lives for. Donna-Mae Butcher, the assistant curator of animals at the Queens Zoo, said that the rabbits “move so quickly, it’s like a flash.” Often the best indication that something happened is morning-after evidence — tufts of hair on the floor, she said.
New England cottontails may have hopped across the five boroughs in the past, but they moved on as the city grew and spread out and the remaining forests and farmland were cleared away. Their numbers dwindled throughout the Northeast: The zoo says the New England cottontail population has shrunk by more than 80 percent since the 1960s. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation puts their status in a category of “special concern,” while New Hampshire and Maine list them as endangered. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considered listing them under the federal Endangered Species Act in the early 2000s but decided not to.
Who’s who
One problem for the Queens Zoo is making sure it is breeding the right rabbits, because the New England cottontail looks somewhat like the Eastern cottontail. “You really have to have a sharp eye,” Butcher said. “The Eastern, their ears are longer and narrower. That’s why we always do a DNA test to make sure it is a true New England cottontail.”The Eastern cottontail was brought to the Northeast from Missouri in the 1930s “primarily to benefit hunters when the native cottontail populations began to decline,” according to the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence, R.I., which began the rabbit repopulation program that the Queens Zoo joined nine years ago.
Since then, the zoo has bred 145 New England cottontails. This summer, 15 youngsters were bred at the Queens Zoo and sent to Maine and Massachusetts after little or no interaction with people, the better to ensure that they would take to the wild when they were released.
There is a protocol for the zoo’s staff when there is a pregnancy: no talking. “You turn your radios down,” Butcher said. The rabbits “are used to normal forest sounds, and we’ve brought them into Queens. They’re used to noises, but not these noises. You have to be conscious how loud you’re speaking and to not drop a rake on the floor. It sends these little things into a panic.”
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