A partnership to protect Connecticut's only native rabbit appears to be working, which means the New England cottontail will not need protection under the Endangered Species Act.
Thomas McAvoy owns some land out in Scotland, Conn., and like many rural landowners, he said his plot used to be a farm. But in the last 50 or so years, he said, "basically nature took over the property."
Older trees replaced low-to-the-ground shrubs, which is bad news for the New England cottontail. So bad, in fact, that the animal's range shrank nearly 90 percent since 1960, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Because of that, McAvoy teamed up with state and federal officials to clear land on his property and found, about a year later, "we just have fields of blueberries and raspberries that came up naturally," he said. "In the other area, where we planted shrubs .... other types of natural shrubs or plants would come up, like milkweed."
Several landowners in New England have done similar projects, clearing old growth to create young forest, since 2000 -- the year when the public petitioned U.S. Fish and Wildlife to protect the New England cottontail under the Endangered Species Act.
Last week, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced that such protection won't be necessary, thanks, in large part, to conservation partnerships like McAvoy's. In the past three years, these public-private initiatives have restored about 4,500 acres of rabbit habitat in New England.
"We feel that there's a high degree of certainty that conservation actions that are being employed on the species behalf at this time will eventually improve the species status to the point where it's a persistent member of our biodiversity," said Anthony Tur, an endangered species specialist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
"Connecticut probably boasts the most intact population of New England cottontail," Tur said. "In eastern Connecticut, southeastern Connecticut in particular, there [are] some fairly robust populations there that are doing quite well and the same can be said for the northwest part of the state. Those populations are doing better than almost any other place within the species range."
Today, Tom McAvoy said, he considers himself more than just a landowner: he's a steward of the Cottontail.
"I would really love to have my sons and my grandchildren understand and carry that forward for generations," he said. "I really see it as a legacy project."
About 10,000 New England cottontails now live in "priority areas" of New England. U.S. Fish and Wildlife hopes to have the number living in "healthy, young forest landscapes" to more than 13,000 by 2030.