Cute Endangered Animal: Pygmy Rabbit  | Tue Jul. 21, 2009 3:01
AM GMT  This week's cute endangered animal is the pygmy rabbit,
which hails from my home state of Oregon, as well as Washington
and Idaho. The pygmy rabbit is the smallest in the US, weighing
just 1 pound. It's also one of two wild rabbit species in North
America that digs its own burrows, and communicates vocally with
squeaks, squeals, and chuckles.  Despite the stereotype of
rabbits breeding like, well, rabbits, the pygmy rabbit is quite
close to extinction due to increasing agriculture, and possibly
disease. The rabbits live pretty much on just one food source:
sagebrush. Now you might think sagebrush is epic in the West: Is
there a Western that's complete without a tangle of sagebrush
rolling through the dusty streets right before a shootout? But
in reality, sagebrush is becoming less and less common in Oregon
since the damming of the Columbia River created more arable
land. As a result, dense sagebrush habitat is hard to find in
the rabbit's