Columbia Basin pygmy rabbits are fighting their way back from the endangered list with the help of Washington State University research associate Becky Elias, who released 20 of the little critters into their natural habitat on March 13.
Elias, who works in for WSU’s natural resource sciences department, shows one of the pygmy rabbits (photo). The pygmy rabbits are being bred in captivity at WSU, Northwest Trek and the Oregon Zoo for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. On this occasion, they were returned to their native habitat in the Sage Brush Flats area north of Ephrata. The releases are expected to continue over the next four to six years until the rabbit population can once again become re-established in the wild. (Photo by Terry Day, courtesy of the College of Agriculture, Human and Natural Rersource Sciences.)
See related articles at:
* Associated Press — Endangered Rabbits Return to Washington,
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/03/14/ap3517588.html
* The Seattle Times — http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=webrabbits13m&date=20070313&query=rabbits
(The Associated Press story, above, also appeared in the New York Times, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Washington Post and several other publications.)
