The pygmy rabbit, which weighs about a pound and can fit in the palm of a human hand, lives in sagebrush habitats in Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Colorado, Montana, California and Oregon.
But conservationists say 90% of its historical range has been destroyed, putting it at risk of extinction. Climate change and other human-caused factors are shrinking the tiny rabbit’s habitat, said Greta Anderson, deputy director of the Western Watersheds Project.
“It is affected by oil and gas development, livestock grazing, non-native species, huge fires, the ongoing drought,” Anderson said of the West’s sagebrush ecosystem, which is shrinking by about 1.3 million acres every year, according to a 2022 report by the U.S. Geological Survey.
Moreover, Anderson said the species is newly threatened by a deadly rabbit hemorrhagic disease first documented in Nevada in 2021.
That’s why, in early 2023, Anderson and other advocates petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the species as endangered. The agency was supposed to make a decision by Mar. 6 this year, but never did.
In response, conservation groups on Aug. 14 sent a formal notice of their intent to sue the Fish and Wildlife Service. Federal officials now have until mid-October to respond.
Efforts to protect the pygmy rabbit go back decades, with the first proposal for listing under the Endangered Species Act filed back in 1991. A second petition submitted in 2003 was eventually denied by the Fish and Wildlife Service in 2010.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
