Nuttall’s cottontail (nuttallii subspecies) COSEWIC assessment and status report: chapter 10

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Existing Protection or Other Status Designations

This species is not listed by the IUCN. The global heritage status rank for S. nuttallii is G5 (secure); national ranks are N5 (secure) for the United States and N5 for Canada. The subspecies S. n. nuttallii is ranked T5 (secure) globally; national ranks are N5 (secure) for the United States and NNR (not ranked) for Canada. British Columbia ranked this subspecies S3 (vulnerable). Washington State’s ranking of S5 (secure) would apply to the subspecies S. n. nuttallii. Nuttall’s Cottontail was assessed by COSEWIC in 1994 (Carter and Merkens1994). The Prairie population (S. n. pinetis/ S. n. grangeri) was designated Not at Risk; the British Columbian population (S. n. nuttallii) was designated Special Concern.

In British Columbia, S. n. nuttallii is protected from killing or collecting under the provincial Wildlife Act. There is no hunting season for this rabbit. Because it is not listed as an Identified Wildlife Species, its habitat has no protection under the province’s Forest and Range Practices Act.

The Canadian range of S. n. nuttallii overlaps a network of protected areas (Table 4). Because this rabbit is confined to a small area at the southern end of Okanagan Mountain Provincial Park, this large protected area is mostly extralimital. However, the White Lakes Grasslands and adjacent federal and provincial protected areas at Vaseux Lake encompass a large tract of connected, protected low elevation habitat for Nuttall’s Cottontail. In addition, these protected areas are linked to various conservation lands purchased by the Nature Trust and The Land Conservancy. Another significant protected area is the South Okanagan Grasslands Provincial Park. It includes the Richter Pass, Chopaka, and Mt. Kobau areas and is contiguous with shrub-steppe habitat in Washington. The Vaseux-White Lakes and South Okanagan Grasslands protected areas, however, are separated by large tracts of private land. Some of these protected areas such as the South Okanagan Grasslands Provincial Park allow livestock grazing.