Unique and Intelligent but Running out of Food.

The Pygmy rabbit has a couple of traits that set them apart from other wild rabbits in America such as the cottontail or the jack rabbit other than being the smallest. They are the only species who dig and live in burrows and they have been observed to be very vocal, giving out what seem to be alarm calls to one another.

90% of the Pygmy rabbit’s diet consists of sagebrush leaves and they use the bushes as cover from predators. The destruction of large tracts of sagebrush is what most animal conservationists blame for the Pygmy rabbits decline.

Trying to Restore a Wild Species in Captivity

The Oregon Zoo has for the past several years been the home of a program that is trying to breed Pygmy rabbits in captivity, in the hop that they can eventually be returned to the wild. They have had some successes and a number of pygmy rabbits have been returned to the wild in Central Washington. The programs funding may be cut at the end of the year however, and some zoo personnel fear that should that happen there are still far from enough pygmy rabbits back out among the remaining sagebrushes for their species to survive,

The Rabbits of Enderby

Rabbits were introduced to the island in 1836 by the crew of the H.M.S Victoria. There is no official records of what breed these rabbits were, some believe either British Silver Greys or French Argente de Champagne but no one knows for sure.

The rabbits thrived on Enderby Island in isolation for almost 130 years. The most commonly seen Enderby rabbit is silverish grey and black in color, but others sre cream and beige, perhaps the result of a recessive gene. The average weight of an adult Enderby Rabit is about four and a half pounds.

Saving and Reviving a Breed

In the 1980’s, the government of New Zealand decided that all of the Auckland Isles, including Enderby, should be returned to their “natural” state, which would involve the destruction of all the mammals who had been introduced to the islands by the Victorians.

A group of conservationists were allowed to remove up to 50 of the rabbits before the cull began. They only managed to catch 49 in the short time they were allowed to try to trap and save the rabbits, but they did bring all of them back to the mainland and set up a very successful breeding program.

Two years ago, the Rare Breeds Conservation Society of New Zealand decided that the stock was now large enough that Enderby Rabbits could now be offered for sale to private individuals, and a number have now been exported to the US, where enthusiastic breeders are trying to establish them as a mainstream breed.