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Global Warming Could Drive California's American Pika Extinct: Endangered

Species Act Protection Sought

 

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Today the Center for Biological Diversity filed a

scientific petition with the California Fish and Game Commission requesting that

the commission protect the American pika under the California Endangered Species

Act due to threats from global warming - the first species for which protection

from global warming has been sought under the state law. Higher temperatures

caused by greenhouse gas pollution have led to widespread losses of pika

populations in recent decades and could eliminate the species from California by

the end of this century.

 

 

 

" The American pika is California's canary in the coal mine, " said Dr. Shaye

Wolf, staff biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity and one of the

primary authors of the petition. " The pika is adapted to life in the cold and

thrives on high-elevation mountain ranges in California. As global warming

raises temperatures across California, American pikas are disappearing. "

 

 

 

The American pika, Ochotona princeps, is a small, furry, vegetarian mammal

related to rabbits and hares, and in the past has been a familiar sight to

alpine hikers in the Sierra Nevada and other mountain ranges. The pika is known

for its distinctive call and for its frenetic activity collecting grasses and

other plants for a " hay pile " that provides sustenance through the winter. Pikas

weigh only a third of a pound, must fill their stomachs nine times per day and

may collect more than 60 pounds of vegetation to survive the winter.

 

 

 

Pikas are adapted to survive cold temperatures and live in rocky, windswept

mountain peaks throughout the western United States. But the animals are very

poorly adapted to dealing with heat and can die from overheating when exposed

for just a few hours to temperatures as low as 80°F. Typically they avoid this

lethal heat by seeking cool, rocky crevices and remaining inactive during warm

periods, but this works only up to a point. The relentless rise in temperatures

from global warming threatens pikas by shortening the period available for them

to gather food, changing the types of plants that grow where they live, reducing

the insulating snowpack, and, most directly, causing the animals to die from

overheating.

 

 

 

Researchers in both Yosemite National Park and the Great Basin have found that

the range of the American pika is already retreating upslope as temperatures

warm. Today, pika populations in Yosemite are found an average of 400 meters, or

more than 1,300 feet, further upslope than they were 90 years ago. Because pikas

are unable to move long distances, lower-elevation populations disappear

entirely when temperatures become too warm.

 

 

 

Today's petition asks the California Fish and Game Commission to protect the

five subspecies of the American pika that occur in California under the

California Endangered Species Act. The petition triggers a several-step process

to protect the pika, with an initial finding due in 90 days, followed by a

year-long status review to determine if protection under the law is warranted.

Because the California Endangered Species Act requires all state agencies to

avoid actions that threaten the survival of species protected under the statute,

listing the American pika will provide further impetus for California to reduce

its greenhouse gas emissions.

 

 

 

" Greenhouse gas pollution is driving the American pika and many other species in

California to extinction, " said Wolf. " It's not too late to save them if we

slash greenhouse gas emissions immediately, but we're running out of time. "

Leading scientists such as Dr. Jim Hansen at NASA have stated that we have less

than a decade to take action to prevent dangerous and irreversible climate

change.

 

 

 

Contact Info:

 

 

 

Shaye Wolf

Tel : 415-436-9682 x 301

Cell : 415-385-5746

 

 

 

Website : the Center for Biological Diversity

 

 

When I see the price that you pay

I don't wanna grow up

I don't ever want to be that way

I don't wanna grow up

Seems that folks turn into things

that they never want