The pygmy rabbit is the smallest rabbit in North America, small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, and weighing in at around one pound.  Pygmy rabbits are highly dependent on sagebrush to provide food and cover throughout the year.  Sagebrush habitat throughout the arid West has been impacted by urbanization, agricultural conversion, energy development, and livestock grazing, and with it, pygmy rabbit populations have declined.  Additional threats include disease and wildfire.

In 2003, ONDA joined other conservation organizations throughout the West to petition the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the pygmy rabbit as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.   ONDA and other organizations subsequently sued the Fish and Wildlife Service when it failed to respond to the petition, which it is required by the Endangered Species Act to do.  The Fish and Wildlife Service then reviewed the petition and claimed the petition did not include enough information to warrant a listing.  This finding only supports conservationists' concerns about the plight of the pygmy rabbit: so little is known about pygmy rabbit populations that we may be in danger of losing them before we can prove that they are disappearing.  ONDA will continue to support efforts to research and protect these tiny creatures.