Home Range and Movements of the Eastern Cottontail in Kansas

A field study documents home range and movement patterns of the eastern cottontail on a mixed woodland–grassland reservation in northeastern Kansas, beginning with a detailed habitat and vegetation description. The author compares five methods for estimating home range by integrating live-trap captures, nest and form locations, direct observations, and tracked movement routes. Live-trapping at 130 stations (50-foot spacing) over 7,850 trap nights supplemented mapping of routes to enclose areas of use. Results reveal considerable variation among estimation techniques and argue for combining multiple data sources to produce more reliable range estimates for population assessment and management.