Difference between wild North American rabbits and wild rabbits from England

Question
QUESTION: This isn't an urgent question but one I have been thinking about for a long time.  I've read Watership Down several times, which deals with a group of wild rabbits that inhabit England. There, wild rabbits live in social groups called warrens,unlike wild rabbits in North America who are solitary. Why do they do this when they are basically the same species?

ANSWER: Dear Nathan,

Actually, they are not the same species.  Wild rabbits in North America are in the genus Sylvilagus, and are commonly called cottontails.  There are at least a dozen different species.  The most common in your area is Sylvilagus floridianus, the Eastern Cottontail.

The wild rabbits in Europe and the British Isles are Oryctolagus cuniculus, the same species as our domestic rabbits (domestics were derived from wild European rabbits).  

Cottontails are somewhat social (they congregate, but don't form warrens), but not as social as Oryctolagus.  Oryctolagus build warrens in which an extended family group will live and interact with the fluctuating hierarchies you read about in Watership Down.  Domestic rabbits will do ths if allowed to go feral (which they often do in the U.S., unfortunately).

We also have hares (Lepus species) in both North America and Europe, but these, too, are different species from each other.  None of the hares burrow, and their main mode of escaping predators is RUNNING!

I live with three different species of lagomorphs (cottontails, jackrabbits (hares), and domestic rabbits), and it's fascinating to see how they interact with each other.  Each species is entirely different, and they sort of treat each other as foreign exchange students.  :)

Hope that helps.

Dana

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Do you know of any specific areas that are populated with feral rabbits here in the US? Are they pictures or studies about them?

Answer
Dear Nathan,

There are lots of different feral rabbit colonies throughout the U.S.  A famous one is still reproducing on the campus of Long Beach City College, California.  

At the moment, one of our chapters--I think it's Colorado, but I'm not sure--is dealing with rabbit raising situation gone bad, in which the owner just let the bunnies loose and they're all over the neighborhood, eating plants, digging burrows, dying in people's yards (because they have no veterinary care), etc.  There's another in northern California on an enclosed property that's off limits to the public, and the jerks who own the place won't let rescuers come in to save the rabbits, and they are slowly starving to death as the food runs out.

Almost anywhere people have abandoned rabbits with regularity, some will survive and start to settle in.

Don't know of any studies being done on them, nor pictures.  But it's a sad situation that should not be allowed for the suffering it causes.

Domestic rabbits cannot generally survive well in the wild, just as wild rabbits do not thrive in captivity.

Dana