Alana Hartman

Against Absence of Adorable Appalachians

Appalachian cottontails Sylvilagus obscurus, still live in Allegany County. However, when I began researching these rabbits for my Master’s at Frostburg State University (FSU) in 1997, my advisor, Dr. Ron Barry, knew from another graduate student’s recent work that they were too rare in this area to be sampled in great enough numbers for a meaningful short-term research project. He hoped we could do basic “natural history” surveys to determine how far they range, what they eat, and what their other habitat needs are, ultimately contributing to the species’ survival. He therefore obtained a grant from West Virginia’s Natural Heritage Program so that Kelly Boyce, another graduate student, and I could study them at Dolly Sods, about 90 minutes away. Then Kelly and I spent the next few years accompanying each other or taking turns making that drive to check our homemade live traps, bring rabbits back to campus to be weighed, measured, ear-tagged, and confirmed as Appalachian cottontails (with a blood electrophoresis test) and return them to their wilderness homes with radio-collars for tracking purposes.

It was a privilege to spend so much time in such a beautiful place, trying to use the education I had already received while learning entirely new physical, practical and technical skills, like making traps and operating a snowmobile. In the process, I was allowed to glimpse the private world of an elusive species. It was wonderful to handle those special little creatures; it must be noted that they are extraordinarily cute. They look very similar to eastern cottontail rabbits, Sylvilagus floridanus, common in backyards all over the eastern United States, but this rare species often has darker hairs between its ears (almost never a white spot) and the ears tend to be shorter and rounder. Their docile demeanor was also really disarming. We greatly enjoyed finding them again, days or weeks later, in their resting places with the help of a beeping radio receiver carried with a long shoulder strap, after we had scrambled through the rhododendron, blueberry bushes, mountain laurel, and lichen-crusted rocks of their high-elevation habitat.

One particular female Appalachian cottontail was repeatedly located in the brush between campsites at Red Creek Campground over many months. I wondered what the campers thought of the radio collar, if she allowed herself to be seen. Others ranged more widely, using the low boughs of red spruce as shelter from snow, or benefiting from the twisted, tough branches of mountain laurel and related shrubs to discourage predators (or researchers!) from approaching them. Virtually all of the carnivores, from snakes and weasels to hawks and owls, in the eastern United States can use Appalachian cottontails for food, especially little juveniles. But that doesn’t solely explain this species’ scarcity, since eastern cottontails are abundant, despite the fact that they hop around defenselessly at the bottom of the same food chains. Habitat loss and fragmentation are major threats for the Appalachian cottontail’s survival as a species, and it is likely that it also suffers from competition with eastern cottontails where their ranges overlap.

Habitat fragmentation has likely caused more and more areas where the two species encounter each other in Allegany County. After all, eastern cottontails thrive at the edges of forests and fields, including the mowed lawns of human residences. At Dolly Sods, which is a plateau over 4000 feet in elevation, only one rabbit that we trapped was an eastern cottontail; the other 40 or so were Appalachians. It would be wonderful if some parts of Allegany County could support a thriving population of this rare species, robust enough to withstand occasional inter-species competition and unpredictable precipitation patterns. This would require protection of its habitats, and corridors between habitat patches, from new residential, commercial (perhaps including windmill complexes and solar fields), and industrial (including mining and fracking) development.

The technology for studying the distribution and diet of rare animals has improved greatly since I finished my project: radio-collars are smaller and more reliable, and often they are even unnecessary, since it is now common to study the DNA in the fecal pellets or “scat” that animals leave behind. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) staff works with FSU researchers to learn more about Appalachian cottontails in western Maryland. They aim to build a geographic database of the occurrence of Appalachian cottontails, thereby refining  areas to recommend for preservation or habitat management.

Allegany County residents have the power to make this happen and to be vigilant about conserving the areas already set aside for wildlife, such as mountain ridges and shale barrens, by supporting land trusts and conservancies financially and through volunteering. It will also require caring residents to comment on land use policy (Comprehensive Plan and zoning updates) and vote for people on relevant committees and boards who will duly consider those documents and the State Wildlife Action Plan when deciding whether granting a waiver would be advisable. In a more practical and immediate sense, everyone who owns land can help native species by removing vegetation that doesn’t help wildlife, i.e., invasive species, and by reducing the amount of area that they mow. Finally, it probably wouldn’t hurt to have a pizza delivered to the hard-working graduate students at FSU’s Compton Hall or the University of Maryland Center for Estuarine Studies “Appalachian Lab” on some cold Wednesday afternoon to support them in their work. Consider attending a thesis defense or other public event in order to catch a glimpse of the private world of an elusive species.

Alana Hartman received her Master of Science in Applied Ecology and Conservation Biology from Frostburg State University in 2002. While working toward this degree, she worked at a restaurant, dog-sat, baby-sat and house-sat, and attended church in Frostburg, and taught applied Physics in Cumberland for the Allegany County Board of Education. She has maintained ties to the people and businesses in the county since marrying an Allegany County native and moving to Pennsylvania and then to West Virginia. She has worked for almost 20 years in Romney for the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. She loves making music with friends, and has performed at the Appalachian Festival on FSU’s campus for the past 3 years as part of The Time Travelers. Alana has two daughters, one of is playing for her third year with the Frostburg Bobcats Volleyball Club.

Tile: Eastern Cottontail, National Museum of Natural History.