If you’ve ever wondered “What’s up, Doc” with the multitude of rabbits in town this year, it’s instructive to know that Needham rolls out a virtual welcome mat for the Eastern cottontail.
Needham, like other suburban towns, boasts small, contained house lots bristling with shrubbery, porches and decks, hedges and fences, all of which provide safe hiding and protective shelter for bunnies. Add a salad mix of lush lawn grass, well-tended flowers and Mr. McGregor-like vegetable patches and you have a smorgasbord for the hungry rabbit.
Unfortunately, the suburban habitat is in many ways superior for rabbits than is much of the habitat in the undeveloped wilds, according to wildlife biologist David Scarpitti.
Of course there are other factors beyond pure habitat that help explain the current explosion of rabbits here. Last year’s mild winter, the warm breeding season this spring, summer and fall, and a lack of predators have combined to enable the rabbit to flourish.
The year of the rabbit won’t last forever. Various predators – owls, hawks, fishers, racoons, foxes, coyotes, mink, bobcats, pet cats and pet dogs and, yes, humans and automobiles – will inevitably catch up to this plentitude of easy prey. A good year or two for rabbits can lead to a very good year for the meat eaters.
“Sometimes it seems like the rabbit was put on this earth to feed everything else,” said Scarpitti, of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. “They produce a lot but are not long lived on the landscape.”
Scarpitti said the average cottontail’s life span is less than 18 months. Right now, with the breeding season having just ended, the population is at its peak, with potentially a rabbit family burrowing in every house lot in Needham. But because rabbits don’t hibernate, the winter, depending on its severity, can be a thinning season, with the rabbits forced to browse without protective foliage or easy greens, leaving them more vulnerable to predators.
Come spring, rabbits will resume doing what they do best: produce, reproduce and re-reproduce. Since they are not monogamous and do not engage in pair breeding, it is, in Scarpitti’s words, “kind of a free-for-all.” A female, or doe, will mate, make a nest, give birth, and within two weeks nurse, wean, and quickly breed again. She can have as many as four litters a year from March to October, with up to five kits in each litter.
With this abundance of rabbits, it’s no wonder that an informal poll at the town Recycling and Transfer Center suggests everyone in Needham has a rabbit tale. Jeanette Poillon swears there are “more than 100 rabbits” in her Jarvis Street neighborhood. Chris Schreiber said rabbits have had at least three litters in his yard in the Heights this summer, driving his dog “absolutely bananas.”
Many also lament the loss of their sunflowers and garden seedlings: The clean 45-degree angle of the cut stem is a sure sign it was not a deer but a rabbit foraging with its upper and lower incisors. Still others wonder where the coyotes are when you need them.
Scarpitti said it’s just a matter of time before the predators turn the table on the rabbits. So next time you see Peter hopping down the bunny trail, with his trademark cottontail gleaming in the gloaming, know that, unlike many happy Needham residents, he likely won’t be here for long.
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