FWS to review pygmy rabbit petition
BOISE — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to decide by May 16 whether threats to the North American pygmy rabbit warrant a yearlong review that could lead to protection under the Endangered Species Act.
The agreement came in a settlement of a U.S. District Court lawsuit by environmental groups that contended the FWS had refused to consider their petition for protection of the rabbit.
The settlement was approved last month by Judge B. Lynn Winmill in Boise.
A similar review was given to the greater sage grouse, which shares the rabbits’ habitat. It was completed Jan. 7, when Fish and Wildlife officials opted against protection for that species.
Five groups, including Western Watersheds Project and Advocates for the West, are now focusing on the tiny rabbit that’s small enough to fit into the palm of a hand. They say it’s also at risk, citing habitat damage from livestock grazing, off-road vehicles and oil and gas development on public lands.
“In this case, the pygmy rabbit is an indicator of the collapse of hundreds of millions of acres of sage-steppe ecosystem,” Jon Marvel of Western Watersheds said in an interview.
Marvel said the court-approved settlement comes after the groups sued the agency when it refused to consider their petition.
The pygmy rabbit already is classified as endangered in parts of neighboring Washington state. Numbers of the Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit dwindled to as few as a just a dozen before its listing in March 2003.
To help save that population, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife in January gave the Oregon Zoo in Portland nearly $60,000 to help build a conservation center dedicated to the rabbit.
Advocates for the pygmy rabbit, discovered in Idaho in 1891 by a U.S. Geological Survey expedition, say they don’t want the decline to get that far in Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Wyoming and Oregon.
Its habitat mirrors that of the sage grouse in those states.
The shy, burrowing rabbit that’s active in the morning and evening hours relies solely on sage in the winter for its food.
“One thing that is key to this species: Everybody likes it immediately,” Marvel said. “These are truly charismatic small mammals.”
If Fish and Wildlife officials decide by May to study the species for possible protection, that effort must be completed by Feb. 16, 2006, according to terms of the settlement approved by Judge Winmill.
The agency also must pay the environmental group’s attorney fees.
“We will be watching the service very closely to ensure that they employ science, and not politics, in determining whether the pygmy rabbit needs protection,” said Todd Tucci, the Boise attorney for the environmental groups.