Once, plenty of New England cottontails hopped around the northeast United States. When they started to disappear, people worried. They wondered, “What we will we hunt now?” Then they got an idea. Another kind of cottontail lived in Missouri. In the 1930s, people brought some of those rabbits—Eastern cottontails—to New England. Soon, they had plenty of rabbits to hunt again. But things didn’t go so well for the New England cottontails. They suddenly had to share food with the new rabbits. The New England rabbits declined even more. They could have died out altogether!

But they didn’t. That’s partly because scientists were paying attention. Scientists kept track of how many New England cottontails survived. They tried to create places for the rabbits to live. But they knew they needed a backup plan. “If the population gets too low,” they said, “we will need more rabbits!” Where could they get more? If the rabbits ran out, that would be the end of New England cottontails forever.

But again, scientists were thinking ahead. They knew they would have to breed rabbits in zoos. Then they could release the rabbits into the wild—just what they are doing today! Roger Williams Park Zoo is in Providence, Rhode Island. In 2010, the zoo’s staff and veterinarians started working on the cottontail-breeding project. Other New England zoos helped too. They gave the Roger Williams Park Zoo the first adult cottontails for the program. You can think of those cottontails as the great grand-rabbits of the future New England bunnies.

The scientists had to answer questions. Could they keep the rabbits alive in captivity? Yes. Could the captive rabbits have babies? Yes. Will the new rabbits survive in the wild? So far, it looks like another yes!