An Assessment of Infant Eastern Cottontail Rehabilitation Success

An Honors Thesis presentation will be made by Morgan Oberly (Stephen Matthews, advisor), titled An Assessment of Infant Eastern Cottontail Rehabilitation Success, in 370 Kottman Hall.

Eastern cottontails are the most common species to be brought to the Ohio Wildlife Center for rehabilitation, representing about 1000 of the 5000 animals annually admitted, but release rates for this species are low.

Infants are easily stressed and difficult to raise in captivity, creating a desire to better accommodate the species. New formulas that address some of the complex gastrointestinal issues of eastern cottontails were fed to infants in trials to determine if that would increase release rates, but other factors seem to have more significance on survival in captivity.