Rabbit? I have been hiking and hunting for 50 years in the high sagebrush country and saw my first one today.They are tiny, this one was almost black and would easily fit in the palm of your hand. We were at 7600' in the White Pine Mts. SE of Hamilton, NV.

Great day, 70* w/ bright sunshine and a gentle breeze. We also saw a small herd of Antelope, some Mule Deer and way too many Mustangs. All the critters were in great shape and everything from Sage to Ponderosa was green and healthy.

LIFE IS GOOD


mike r

sounds like a great day, except for the estray horses. some cool animals in the desert, I used to see kit foxes near Reno, but I don't recall any pyg rabbits.

One inch of rain here so far this year and its been kind of hot until today. A stiff norther is blowing and it had knocked the temperature down to 102 as of an hour ago.
Crap.

Why do we stay where summers are so grim? We go home in the morning where it will be 106*. We are stuck in LV for the rest of June so my growler can complete her PT on knee and back. The utility trailer is already packed w/ camping gear and we will head for the Sawtooths after the 4th of July weekend and remain in the mountains until hunting season.

All of you who work outdoors have my sympathy.


mike r

saw a pygmy hare here about 10 years ago. putting the sneak on a grouse with my bow on a logging road and about stepped on it.
it looked like a small ball of lint tumbling down the two track . got me laughing so hard it flushed the grouse.

Saw a snowshoe here a few days ago. Rare as hens teeth here. On the right side of the two track next to the brush.

The Idaho Fish and Game says they're only found in southern ID but when I was in college in north ID, we used to see a few. Either that or the regular cottontails were stunted.

Never yet.

A few other things I've never seen too.

Mountain Beaver.
Snowshoe (Varying?) hare

lots of different snakes and lizards.

Pygmy rabbit would be cool to see. Not sure if theyr'e in this neighborhood.

Glad you're having a good time this weekend, too bad you have to go back to the city. Remember.......106 beat the heck out of 117. (Or 128 at Willow Beach!)

Geno

Did not even know they existed, thanks for that.

found these two by my flower bed friday. drug them out of their nest pulling a garden hose.
one fell in a hole i dug that had water in it and was up to his neck( one cup of water!)
dried them off put them back and momma came saturday night and moved them under my shed.
cute little buggers . both of them together smaller than my fist. i have 6 snowshoe hares just around the house.
and 2 damn lazy labs!

Mike,

I saw the opposite, years ago, hunting Mulies on the AZ/UT line. White-tailed Jack! hell I thought it was a damned German sheperd, it looked so big. Black tailed jack are lanky but scrawny. this dang thing looked so healthy, i was afraid 140 gr partition wasn't going to be enough. ; )

Didn't shoot it, I was afraid it was the last one, plus I knew there was a deer around somewhere. It was a True Hare!

Sycamore

I've seen pygmy rabbits in SE Oregon. They are really small. Cute little guys.

I spotted a gigantic white tail Jack near Vernal, Ut. last fall. Easily the largest wild rabbit I have ever seen, It looked like a small kangaroo.


mike r

later that week, carrying a 3 pointer out of the bottom of a canyon, I wished I was carrying the rabbit! ; )

after 53 years of life, wife gave me the thumbs up to take a good job in AK when I find it and she will follow in 2021! No more summers for me if I can just find a job.

We were @ Illipah Resevoir @ the same time, sound like you were around White River or Ellison? The fishing was great @ Illipah!

Too many mustangs there, too. Maybe they're eating the pygmy bunnies, used to see 'em a lot, a rarity seeing one now.

Holler next time you're in the area, I'll have a beverage for you.

Hi WR, we drove past Ilipah on Wednesday on our way south. We hit Ellison, Shermantown,Hamilton, Belmont Mill, Green Springs etc. That is some great country that I haven,t seen for a long time and was surprised how little it has changed. I think I would like living in Ely. I will be in touch next trip.


mike r

Never even heard of pygmy bunnies before. Interesting.

Lots of Pygmy rabbits around our area! They are neat little critters, I enjoy seeing them. Haven't seen a snowshoe hare. Here for a couple years. I like watching them also! I feel sorry for the snowshoes when they turn white and the snow doesn't come! Puts them farther down the food chain, snow White trying to hide in green bushes!

If you think white-tailed jacks are huge, you should see an arctic hare... their upper end size is more than half again the size of the biggest White-tailed. They truly are bigger than the average red fox in length, weight, and legs.

The local Cabela's has a photo of an old-timer with quite a few of them and looks like it was photoshopped because the proportions are so weird.

We call them Pikas or "rock rabbits" in Alaska.... oops, different species....

I looked for them for 2 years west of Fort Collins, where they were reputed to be. Never saw one.

In 14 years over a span of 4 decades in the Arctic, I've never seen an Arctic Hare either- and only one Polar Bear.

Make that one live PB...

Yes, but only a few. Look like half pint cotton tails with a dusty tail and a bit colonial. Usually in sandy soil areas supporting basin big sagebrush. The stuff that's about 5+ ft tall. They are a bit of a climber too and the first I ever noticed were bailing out of the sage where they had climbed to see what was coming down the road. In recent years some of the greenie outfits have been attempting to exploit their rarity as a tool to exclude livestock grazing from public lands.

Cookies had little to no luck photographing the pygmies.

Mostly black tailed jackrabbits out in the desert and we have snow shoes in the forest once one gets to about 6,000 ft or so. Cotton tails around the rocky desert rims.

Saw a 4-5 yo midget the other day. She was full grown.

It was really something else and quite endearing.

I lived in NV most of my life (both Northern and Southern).
I've hunted all over the entire state and never saw a single one.

As far as working outside goes.....I worked as a carpenter in So. NV from the late 60's untill 82 when I wised up and moved to No. NV. Growing up in So. NV we thought nothing of the heat but I couldn't do it now if my life depended on it.

that's got to be a party for the fox that connects on an Arctic hare!

[quote=1minute]Yes, but only a few. Look like half pint cotton tails with a dusty tail and a bit colonial. Usually in sandy soil areas supporting basin big sagebrush. The stuff that's about 5+ ft tall. They are a bit of a climber too and the first I ever noticed were bailing out of the sage where they had climbed to see what was coming down the road. In recent years some of the greenie outfits have been attempting to exploit their rarity as a tool to exclude livestock grazing from public lands.

Cookies had little to no luck photographing the pygmies.

Mostly black tailed jackrabbits out in the desert and we have snow shoes in the forest once one gets to about 6,000 ft or so. Cotton tails around the rocky desert rims. [/quote

Yep - rabbits climb trees! I have previously related how I had an afternoon as a teen of "wing-shooting" cottontails bailing out of ND buffalo-berry thickets because a chinook had flooded the prairie with a couple inches of water.

How do you think they survive in the river bottoms in flood-time?

Well, maybe not so much, sizes considered.... foxy might be biting off more than he can chew.

An Arctic fox isn't much bigger than a good sized house cat. And Red/cross up here aren't much bigger than that.

Had some living on the place when we lived upstream from here along the Payette River.
Sometimes eating grass in the yard. The dogs would chase them. I don't think they ever caught one.

Foxes have been videoed trying to catch them and not only can the hares leave them in the dust instantly, but if they decide to turn on the fox the fox gets his ass kicked badly!

Yup, foxes weigh a LOT less than they look to. Having put huge numbers of them on scales, an 8 pound red is pretty ordinary here. Kodiak has some monster foxes due to the ready availability of salmon. I have weighed many there over 15 pounds, but they have two inches of fat on the skin.

Arctic hares vs foxes brings to mind the time my 95 pound Lab grabbed hold of a 30 pound king salmon in 4 feet of water....


It wasn't pretty, and I about fell out of the counting tower laughing.

Not sure who turned loose of who first amidst all the whitewater, tails, etc....

I had to make him quit catching? fish, as I was a F& G employee at the time. Didn't look good... even with no witnesses.

But I digress from Pygmy rabbits...