Little cottontail rabbits hop off into a brushy field. One, two, three . . .

Altogether, scientists have released about 140 baby New England cottontail rabbits into thickets in New Hampshire and Rhode Island. They plan to release up to 500 more each year. Will the released bunnies be able to save the region’s New England cottontail population?

Right now, some New England states are running out of rabbits. At least, they’re running out of this kind. New England cottontails need very specific homes. They like to live in young forests, not old ones. Young forests are overgrown places full of weeds, shrubs, vines, and baby trees. Places like that are created when fires, floods, or windstorms sweep across the land. Long ago, those disasters happened often in New England. But today, people prevent them. That means fewer homes for New England cottontails. In Rhode Island, researchers look for the rabbits every year. Sometimes, they find some. But other years, they can’t find even one!

So far, New Hampshire has restored more than 1,000 acres of land the cottontails can live on. Scientists hope the released rabbits will do what rabbits do best—make more rabbits! Rabbits reproduce fast. Baby rabbits (kits) take only 30 days to grow inside a mother rabbit. Mother rabbits usually have four to 12 baby kits at a time. Then in another 30 days, mother rabbits can have kits again. Imagine what might happen if scientists continue with their plan to release up to 500 bunnies each year. You don’t even have to do the math! It’s clear they will end up with lots and lots of new cottontails! Right?

At first, researchers weren’t so sure. None of the rabbits had lived in the wild before. What if coyotes and foxes ate them? What if the rabbits became too stressed to reproduce? But so far, the project is going well. In some places, the New England cottontail population has even doubled. Because of that, the bunnies reached a milestone. They got scratched off the endangered species list!