Are Rabbits Endangered? The European Rabbit's Surprising Status

Why the European rabbit is listed as Endangered

The European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) evolved on the Iberian Peninsula and in southern France. The IUCN, which compiles the global Red List of Threatened Species, assessed it in 2018 and moved it to Endangered in its 2019 update, with a decreasing population trend. That status is based only on the native range. Rabbits introduced to Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Chile and hundreds of islands do not count toward the assessment, because they are not part of the species’ natural populations.

This creates a famous paradox: the same species is a protected, declining animal in Spain and Portugal and a damaging invasive animal elsewhere.

There is a newer, more regional picture too. A 2025 IUCN assessment of the rabbit across Europe as a whole classed it as Near Threatened. It found stable or rising trends in the northeastern subspecies, O. c. cuniculus, but continuing decline in the southwestern Iberian subspecies, O. c. algirus, and suggested the two may need separate assessments in future.

What caused the decline?

Several threats have hit native rabbits one after another.

• Myxomatosis. This viral disease was released in Australia in 1950 and in France in 1952 to control rabbits, and it spread across Europe, reaching Spain and Portugal in the 1950s. It killed the vast majority of infected rabbits at first; resistance built up over time, but outbreaks still occur.
• Rabbit hemorrhagic disease (RHD). A second, highly contagious virus reached Spain in the late 1980s and caused another crash. A new strain, RHDV2, appeared in France in 2010 and spread through Iberia within a few years, causing fresh declines.
• Habitat change. Rabbits thrive in a mosaic of short pasture, crops and scrub. In parts of Iberia, abandoned farmland has turned into dense scrub and forest, while elsewhere intensive farming has removed hedgerows and field edges. Both changes leave fewer good places to feed and dig.
• Hunting. The rabbit is an important game animal in Spain and Portugal, and heavy hunting can slow recovery in places where numbers are already low.

Large-scale releases of farmed or translocated rabbits have been tried to restore numbers, with limited success, partly because released rabbits can spread disease and mix the two subspecies.

Why rabbit losses matter: the Iberian lynx and imperial eagle

In Mediterranean Spain and Portugal, the rabbit is a keystone species: an animal whose role is so important that many others depend on it. Dozens of predators eat rabbits there, and some depend on them almost entirely.

The best example is the Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus). Rabbits make up the large majority of its diet, and when rabbit numbers fell, the lynx followed. By 2002 only about 94 Iberian lynx survived in two isolated populations in Andalusia. Conservation work, including habitat restoration, restocking rabbits, captive breeding and reintroductions, brought the population to more than 2,000 by 2023, and in 2024 the IUCN moved the lynx from Endangered to Vulnerable. Healthy rabbit populations remain essential to that recovery.

The Spanish imperial eagle, listed as Vulnerable, also relies heavily on rabbits, especially when feeding chicks. Learn more about the region’s wildlife in our guide to wild animals of Spain.

Are rabbits endangered outside Iberia?

Outside its native range the European rabbit is not protected as a threatened species, and in Australia, New Zealand and on many islands it is treated as a serious invasive pest. Its spread in Australia is one of the most famous invasions in history; see How did rabbits get to Australia?

In Britain and other parts of northern Europe, rabbits are still common, but numbers have fallen since the 1990s, largely because of disease. Long-term monitoring suggests a drop of more than half in the UK between the mid-1990s and 2018. That worries conservationists because short, rabbit-grazed turf supports rare wildflowers, butterflies and birds.

Other rabbits that are endangered

There are about 30 species of rabbits worldwide. Most are not threatened, but several are:

The common rabbit of North America, the eastern cottontail, is widespread and listed as Least Concern. Its close relative, the New England cottontail, has lost much of its young-forest and thicket habitat and is the focus of habitat restoration projects in the northeastern United States.

Are pet rabbits endangered?

No. Domestic rabbits are a domesticated form of the European rabbit and are kept and farmed in very large numbers worldwide. The Endangered listing applies only to wild rabbits living in the species’ natural range in southwestern Europe.