Environmental groups are threatening to take legal action over the pygmy rabbit, claiming the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service isn’t doing enough to protect the animal. So why is the little creature so precious?
🐇 A Tiny Little Thing
The pygmy rabbit is the smallest rabbit in North America. Fully-grown adults weigh under a pound and are less than 12 inches in length. The pygmy is the only rabbit in Nevada that digs its own burrows, which tend to be just three inches long.
😢 Short Lives
Pygmy rabbits live just three to five years. They have short ears, small hind legs, and have distinctively dusky gray fur.
🌵 A Nevada Native
The pygmy rabbit is reliant on sagebrush for food and shelter, which is found throughout Nevada. The animal has an especially strong presence in the Ruby Lake National Wildlife Refuge and is also present in Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, California, and Oregon. Their home range broadens in spring and summer and is kept relatively tight in winter.
🐰 New Threats
The pygmy rabbit’s habitat is threatened by livestock grazing, oil and gas production, invasive plants, and wildfires as well as a virus among the species that emerged a few years ago. Efforts to list the rabbits on the Endangered Species Act date as far back as 1991 with a new push expected to pick back up if the Fish and Wildlife officials fail to release an already overdue 12-month finding report.
