Pygmy Rabbit
Photo Courtesy of United States Bureau of Land Management
Brachylagus idahoensis
NatureServe conservation status
Global (G-rank): G4
State (S-rank): S3
Utah Wildlife Action Plan status
- SGCN
External links
Species range
This species occurs mainly in the Great Basin. Its range is mostly in western Utah, central and northern Nevada, southern Idaho, and eastern Oregon, but it also extends into southwestern Wyoming, extreme northwestern Colorado, parts of extreme northeastern and east–central California, and extreme southwestern Montana. There is a small, disjunct population in east–central Washington. Its distribution in Utah is geographically complex, but it is generally the western half of the state, north of the Pine Valley Mountains, mostly but not entirely west of the central mountains, and in northern Utah in areas near the Idaho border.
Ecology
The pygmy rabbit is an extreme ecological specialist dependent upon sagebrush for its habitat and for most of its diet, especially its winter diet.
Threats or limiting factors
The principal threats to this species in Utah are loss, degradation, and fragmentation of its sagebrush habitat. Such effects on the pygmy rabbit’s habitat result from anthropogenic causes as well as from fire and from invasive plants such as cheat grass. It has been suggested that diseases such as rabbit hemorrhagic disease (RHDV2), and possibly tularemia and even sylvatic plague, may also be lesser threats, although thus far there has been little evidence of this.