The New England cottontail needs a dense understory of brush.
Hike through any forest in Connecticut and you're bound to encounter a relic of the state's agricultural past: stone walls. Decades ago, the walls enclosed large tracts of open pasture and farmland, which was ideal habitat for animals like the New England cottontail rabbit.
But as farms were abandoned and that open space turned into mature forest, those rabbits disappeared. Now, federal efforts are underway to recreate some of that open space, and bring the New England cottontail back.
First off, New England cottontails are likely not the rabbits you see scampering across your lawn in the spring. Those are probably eastern cottontails, rabbits with much better eyesight more easily able to avoid predators in grassy areas.
The New England Cottontail, on the other hand, needs a dense understory of brush, the kind found in an "early successional" or young forest. Today, that habitat accounts for less than three percent of Connecticut's 1.8 million forested acres, but 90-year-old landowner Chris Glenney remembers a time when there were a lot more. I visited him on about 300 acres of his property in Lisbon.
"Back in the '60s, when we bought the first 100 acres, you could come out here and hunt birds: grouse, quail, woodcock," Glenney said. "You could hear a Bobwhite at night. You could hear a Whip-poor-will. All that's gone. The forest has grown up."
"Amphibians are going to love this. They're going to love the decaying wood."
Ted Kendziora
Ted Kendziora is a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. As saws buzz in the background, we trek through the mud and look out at a freshly cut patch of forest on Chris Glenney's property.
"You smell that?" he asks. "That's black birch. The whole site smells like that. It's awesome!"
The point of the cut, Kendziora said, is to clear out mature growth and re-create a young forest habitat that's a kind of social space for the rabbits. "When I break it down for like the lay person, when they talk to me, and [ask] what are we doing? I'm like, 'This is the shopping mall. Everyone comes here. They got food here. They're hanging out to find other people. You know? It's a good time.'"
While Kendziora said creating this space for the New England cottontail is the feds' primary objective right now -- the animal is being considered for federal protection under theEndangered Species Act -- he said other species benefit from young forest as well. "Birds will come in right away. Deer will come in right away when this happens and turkey," said Kendziora. "But then there's other things that are going to come in. Amphibians are going to love this. They're going to love the openings of it. They're going to love the decaying wood."
Kendziora said he's spent a lot of time working with Chris Glenney, too. Trying to figure out what his vision for the land was and how that squared with the habitat the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wanted to create. Asking, he said, it's your land, what would you like to do with it?
"Then we got to, 'I used to have bird hunting out here with my sons when I moved in, when they were little kids. I was like, 'Well, if you want your kids to have that with their children out here, this is what we have to do.'"
Kendizora said while Glenney is providing much of the funding for the logging right now -- he'll get reimbursed for the work by both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of Agriculture, who will help his family manage the habitat going forward.
As we hiked through the mud, Chris Glenney leaned on his cane and looked out at his property. It was only ten days into a 30-day cutting process, but already, it had been transformed. The old stone walls sat untouched, but many of the trees inside them were gone, cleared out to allow healthier ones to grow and be harvested for timber by his family decades from now.
In the coming seasons, Kendizora said acres of newly-created underbrush will grow in -- close to the ground, which will keep the New England cottontails happy. And some of the many trees that are left, like white oaks, will provide the acorns to lure in deer and keep Chris Glenney happy. At 90, he's still deer hunting and he can't wait for his property to be back like it was long ago:
"Deer hunting can be done in various degrees. You don't have to do a lot of tramping. You can just choose your site to sit down and wait. Actually that's probably the most successful way to get a shot," Glenney said. "Yup, I'll be out here."
And hopefully next year when Glenney's out there, the greens will be chest high, the deer and birds abundant, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service hopes, a little bit more filled with New England cottontail rabbits, too.
