Pygmy Rabbit – State Wildlife Action Plan

Photo Credit: Tom Koerner, US Fish and Wildlife Service

The pygmy rabbit is the smallest rabbit species in North America, with adults weighing an average of 400 g. The female is somewhat larger than the male. Fur is color is gray, but lighter in autumn and winter than in spring and summer; hairs are banded with blackish tips, buff-colored mid-shafts, and dark gray at the base; the ears are heavily furred with a buffy color along the edge. The hind feet and nape are buffy cinnamon in color. The pygmy rabbit lives exclusively in sagebrush habitat where stands of big sagebrush, Artemisia tridentata, occur over deposits of suitably textured soils at least 30 cm deep. Soil types are most commonly sandy or silty soil with low clay content but pygmy rabbits have also been found in soils with greater clay content.

Overview

Species Common Name Pygmy Rabbit
Species Scientific Name Brachylagus idahoensis
Federal Listing Status Species of Concern
State Listing Status Sensitive

Ecoregions

Blue Mountains

Located in NE Oregon, the Blue Mountains ecoregion is the largest ecoregion in the state. It provides a diverse complex of mountain ranges, valleys, and plateaus that extend beyond Oregon into the states of Idaho and Washington.

Northern Basin and Range

The Northern Basin and Range ecoregion covers the very large southeastern portion of the state, from Burns south to the Nevada border and from the Christmas Valley east to Idaho. It is largely a high elevation desert-like area dominated by sagebrush communities and habitats.

Special needs

The pygmy rabbit is a sagebrush obligate, requiring tall dense clumps of basin big sagebrush, deep, loose soils for digging burrows, and native grasses for summer forage.

Limiting factors

Threats are largely from modification, destruction, and degradation to sagebrush habitat through livestock grazing, increased fire intensity and frequency, juniper encroachment, and invasive non-native plant species. Loss of cover due to these factors may also increase predation and negatively impact populations. Pygmy rabbits are naturally patchily distributed on the landscape and local populations are susceptible to declines from the above threats. Dispersing juvenile pygmy rabbits are known to cover distances of up to at least 10 km, but habitat loss and degradation may reduce connectivity among and between populations.

Data gaps

• Assess distribution and abundance.
• Assess population dynamics.
• Evaluate the effects of habitat fragmentation on dispersal.
• Evaluate connectivity.
• Evaluate genetic diversity.
• Evaluate threats from rabbit hemorrhagic disease (RDHV2).

Conservation actions

• Maintain basin big sagebrush habitats.
• Ensure habitat connectivity between priority populations.
• Develop fire and weed control plans.
• Develop management plans in core habitat areas.
• Rehabilitate habitat post fire in key areas using native plants and seeds; manage conifer/juniper encroachment.
• Manage livestock grazing appropriately.
• Determine optimum habitat patch size needed to function as breeding and dispersing habitat.

Key reference or plan

J. Gervais 2016, Conservation Assessment for the Pygmy Rabbit (Brachylagus idahoensis) in Oregon and Washington, Oregon Wildlife Institute. Read here