Efforts to help pull the endangered New England cottontail back from the brink

A medium-sized brown and gray rabbit is driving people on Cape Cod to crawl on their hands and knees through the snow, searching for signs of it. It is the New England cottontail, one of the rarest species in the Northeast.

“We know that they’re here. We just don’t know how many,” said Tony Perry, a field worker in the tribe’s natural resources department who has been helping with the cottontail project.

Since 1960, the rabbit has vanished from 86 percent of the places it lived, according to federally funded studies. The New England cottontail is now one of just two species at the highest federal priority level in the entire Northeast, from Maine to West Virginia.

Read more at capnewsdotnet.