Easter Warning: Climate Change Threatens Bunnies

The Associated Press
The Associated Press

It seems even the holiest day on the Christian calendar is not safe from the climate change zealots, including highlighting the harm it is causing rabbits, i.e., the secular Easter bunny.

The Los Angeles Times reported:

Easter is still a great day for worship, candy in baskets, pagan equinox rituals and running around the yard finding eggs, but every year it gets quite a bit worse for bunnies.

And no, not because the kids like to pull their ears. The culprit is climate change, and the folks at Climate Nexus found that rising temperatures are having adverse effects on at least five species of rabbit in the U.S.

Here are some of the climate change vs. bunnies claims the Times reported:

  • The Lower Keys Marsh rabbit is among the ill-fated bunnies because it lives on islands and climate change is causing rising sea levels. “According to the Center for Biological Diversity’s 350 project, which highlights species that are most directly impacted by global warming, an ocean level rise of only .6 meters will send these guys hopping for higher ground and a .9 meter rise would wipe out their habitat completely,” the Times reported.
  • The snowshoe hare has a color problem because climate change is making it harder for their fur to change from white to brown as the snow season is shortened, making them easier for predators to spot.
  • American pikas—a relative of the rabbit and dubbed “rock rabbits”—are threatened by climate change because of global warming. “Rodent-like creatures about 7-8 inches long, pikas live high in the cool, moist mountains west of the Rocky Mountains, in the alpine zone above the treeline. As global temperatures rise, they would naturally migrate to higher elevations—but they already occupy the mountaintops and high ridges. They can’t go any higher,” the Times reported.
  • The volcano rabbit is facing dietary issues because of climate change. They, too, are being forced to move higher on the slopes of volcanos in Mexico where they live that lack vegetation.

The most “Easter-y” of all bunnies, according to the Times, is the pygmy rabbit, which are tiny creatures that weigh less than 1 pound and live around sagebrush in the western United States.

These tiny rabbits are being harmed by climate change because of less snow, making it tougher for them to hide in snowbanks to escape predators, according to climate change advocates.

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