Yellowstone mystery: Where are all the rabbits?
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Yellowstone mystery: Where are all the rabbits?*
Published: Feb. 17, 2008 at 3:09 PM
NEW YORK, Feb. 17 (UPI) -- The U.S. Wildlife Conservation Society is
trying to figure out why jack rabbits have vanished from Yellowstone
National Park.
The report, published in the journal Oryx, said there have been no
confirmed jack rabbit sightings in Yellowstone since 1991 and only three
in Grand Teton National Park since 1978.
Historical records indicate that white-tailed jack rabbits were once
abundant in Greater Yellowstone, a 23,166-square-mile ecosystem that
contains the Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks, the group said
Thursday in a release.
Lead author Joel Berger of the University of Montana said the lack of
jack rabbits could be due to disease, extreme weather, predation or
other factors.
"Since the rabbits blipped off without knowledge, there has simply been
no way to get at the underlying cause," he said in a statement.
Berger said the the absence of jack rabbits may be causing elevated
predation by coyotes on juvenile elk, pronghorn and other ungulates and
suggests that wildlife managers should consider reintroduction of the
rabbits.
"Reintroduction may result in the establishment of dynamic ecological
processes that were intact before rabbits vanished from the ecosystem,"
he said.