http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0821-10.htm
Published on Thursday,
August 21, 2003 by the Guardian / UK
American Pika Doomed as 'First Mammal
Victim of Climate Change'
by Paul Brown
Scientists believe the American pika, a mountain-dwelling relative
of the rabbit, is heading for extinction and will be one of the
first mammals to fall victim to climate change.
Ochotona princeps,
a stocky tail-less animal about the size of a
hamster, lives between the tree-line and mountain peaks.
As the climate heats
up it is having to go to higher altitudes
to find suitable habitats.
In the winter it lives
under the snow in tunnels, feeding off
piles of hay it has stored inside.
A study reported in
the US Journal of Mammalogy found that in
pika populations at 25 places nearly 30% of the animals had gone.
The locations are so remote that there seemed to be no other factor
than climate change.
The study between 1994
and 1999 surveyed the sites in the Great Basin,
east of Sierra Nevada and west of the Rocky Mountains, where pikas
had been recorded.
Although the habitat
had apparently changed little in that time,
pikas had vanished from seven of the 25 places during the past
86 years: a period shown by the data to have experienced climate
change.
Research shows that
American pikas are particularly vulnerable to
global warming because they live in areas with a cool, fairly
moist
climate.
They are active above
ground in the early morning and retreat
to their nests in rock crevices shortly after sunset.
"Losses of pikas
are disturbing because pikas are often locally
abundant and scientists had assumed that alpine and sub-alpine
ecosystems were relatively undisturbed because of their isolation,"
said Erik Beever of the US geological survey's forest and
rangeland ecosystem science centre, the lead author of the report.
"The responses
of pika populations are a signal of the impacts
of climate change in alpine and sub-alpine systems."
Many northern hemisphere
mountain animals are expected to migrate
north or seek higher ground to find suitable habitats as the
climate alters. But the American pika appears not as well-equipped
as other species to handle this environmental shift.
"American pikas
are like the canary in the coal mine," said
Caterina Cardoso, head of WWF-UK's climate change programme.
"Their disappearance
is a red flag that our heavy reliance
on dirty fossil fuels, such as coal and gas, is causing
irreparable damage to our environment. We must switch to
clean, renewable energy resources before it's too late for us
and the pika."
© Guardian Newspapers
Limited 2003
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