Endangered bunnies breeding again

EPHRATA – The critically endangered Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit is getting another last-minute chance at survival after animals in a captive breeding program began, well, breeding like rabbits.

The breeding program for the tiny rabbits will not end this year, as was proposed by the state and federal agencies that have been working to save the animal since 2001.

Some money has been set aside for limited breeding at the Oregon Zoo in Portland, at Washington State University, and Northwest Trek Wildlife Park near Tacoma.

Last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the breeding program would most likely end this year, along with all hope of restoring a near-purebred population of the rabbit from Douglas County. It was costing too much money with poor results, officials said.

The agencies have spent about $250,000 a year since 2001, when all the last known Columbia Basin pygmy rabbits were captured from the wild for the breeding program. But the animals – extremely inbred and lacking genetic diversity – struggled to produce offspring in captivity. They were crossbred with Idaho’s more robust rabbits, but survival rates were still not strong, officials said.

After the agencies announced last year that the program would most likely end this year, however, the survival rate started improving. The breeding effort started this year with 100 rabbits – one of its best showings since the program began, said Chris Warren, an endangered species biologist who oversees the pygmy rabbit recovery effort for the Fish and Wildlife Service.

“We decided that if we forgo the breeding process this year, it severely limits our options in the future,” he said. “We kind of allow the process to make up our minds (on whether the animal can be saved).”

There are no known Columbia Basin pygmy rabbits left in the wild, and the last purebred rabbit in captivity died two years ago. Offspring being produced in captivity from a mixed breed of Washington and Idaho rabbits now have about 73 percent of the genes of the original Columbia Basin brood stock. The federal recovery plan for the rabbits calls for 75 percent or higher for them to be considered part of the Columbia Basin subspecies.

The federal agency and the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, which are working jointly on the recovery effort, have not decided what the recovery effort will look like in the future, Warren said. They also have yet to determine how many more pygmy rabbits to release into the wild.