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Pikas Disappearing Due to Climate Change


Claire.

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Adorable American Pika Is Disappearing Due to Climate Change

The American pika, a pint-size rabbit relative, is feeling the heat: Hotter summers induced by climate change are threatening these cute creatures' habitats throughout the western United States.The small herbivores make their home in rocky slopes, known as taluses, across the West's mountain ranges. A new study by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) found that whole populations of the tiny mammal are disappearing due to climate change. The pika's mountainous habitats have become hotter and drier in the summer and harsher in the winter, with less snow cover to insulate their burrows in the ground, the researchers said.

After studying the cute critters from 2012 to 2015, the USGS found that the pikas' range was shrinking in southern Utah, northeastern California and the Great Basin, the latter of which covers most of Nevada as well as parts of Utah, Oregon, Idaho and California.

Read more: Live Science

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  • 3 weeks later...

Poor little things were in for some bad news....

Climate-Threatened American Pika Denied Protection--Again

The American pika (Ochotona princeps) just can’t catch a break. Just weeks after a new study from the U.S. Geological Survey confirmed that the cold-adapted, mountain-dwelling rodents are disappearing from some of their habitats due to the effects of climate change, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took the unexpected move of denying a petition to protect the species under the Endangered Species Act.

Read more: Scientific American

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