By: Angelina Tang
We all know the impacts climate change has on polar bears, pandas, and bees, but there’s another animal it has an important effect on that doesn’t receive nearly enough publicity: rabbits.
We’ve all interacted with these fuzzy creatures at some point in our lives, whether it be owning one as a pet, watching cute snowshoe fluff balls racing across the TV screen, or chasing them out of the garden where they’re eating all the flowers. Rabbits are seen as rather common in our lives, but that may unfortunately change soon due to climate change.
There are several reasons for why we may see less and less rabbits in certain parts of the world, and why some more exotic varieties of them may be going extinct while others are thriving and actually increasing in number. First and foremost, rabbits are sensitive to heat. When the name of the problem is global warming, it’s easy to see why this would affect them. Rabbits see reduced fertility when stressed in hot weather, meaning they have smaller litters with higher infant mortality rates. In addition, warmer temperatures propagate parasites and bacteria in the soil that rabbits live upon and burrow in, which increases infections and subsequent death for them.
Warming temperatures also obviously result in habitat loss, as winters shorten in northern parts of the globe and the Arctic Circle slowly shrinks. Snowshoe hares, who are famous for changing coats from brown to white according to the seasons, have already been witnessed to wind up with white fur before the shortening winter begins, thus making them sitting ducks for predators like lynxes and foxes. On the other hand, however, the melting of snow on mountains actually produces more habitats for rabbits not used to snow all year-round, so those who live at the base of mountain ranges may begin to travel up the slopes.
In general, to escape the warming temperatures, rabbits will begin to move north and southward, closer to the poles and away from the Equator. Whether or not they will be able to adapt to habitat shifts, only time will tell. On a different note, the impact of climate change on rabbits also extends to meat rabbits. Reduced fertility and the costly need for cooler facilities (e.g. purchasing and maintaining air conditioning and fans that were once unneeded) are damaging to the rabbit meat industry. While this is a good thing for those of us who care for animal rights, it can slow down medical research in parts of the world that still use animals in their laboratories, and also leave countries such as Egypt—where rabbit meat is a large part of their diet and important to the economy—with a deficit in food supply.
Climate change affects every animal living on our planet, and that includes the hardiest of rodents. The impact of global warming on rabbits is a mixed bag, but it’s undeniable that our actions have had a negative consequence on the natural inhabitants of the Earth.
