Volcano Rabbit - Decline

Decline

The most serious threats to the volcano rabbit are habitat degradation and target shooting. Hunters looking for game birds (such as quail) will use the rabbit for target practice. Also people took over some of the land they were living in. The people living in the mountains consider it vermin to be killed off. Neither the hunters or the natives eat the volcano rabbit.

Decreases in R. diazi population have been occurring due a number of changes in vegetation, climate, and elevation changes for the volcano rabbit. It is believed that “Climate change amplifies the decline in female abundance and the cumulative probability of decline for R. diazi” (Anderson, BJ ,1416) Climate change is seen to be detrimental to the volcano rabbit mainly because of the effect on its very specific vegetation and environment needs. Patches of vegetation that the R. diazi use for survival are becoming fragmented, isolated and smaller making the environment more open and less suitable for the small rabbit. The volcano rabbit has also had to overcome human changes in land use, pushing them further up their mountainous environment and therefore forced into a higher elevation with a less suitable environment. Human intervention within the R. diazi’s environment has proven to be the most detrimental to the rabbit’s survival. Within areas of grazing, logging, and farming showed zero R. diazi sightings of the 6,488 average provided by Alejandro Velazquez study of the rabbit’s population on El Pelado volcano, Mexico. This number compared to the 5,771 rabbits found in thick forest and grassland environments is a crucial statistic in showing that the volcano rabbit’s survival heavily relies in the environments ability to provide a proper diet as well as shelter for the small rabbit.