“A larger haypile acts as insurance policy against winter starvation,” explained Stewart. Pikas don’t hibernate, but rather use their furnace-like metabolism and thick coat of fur to stay warm during winters under the snow. “The classic image of a pika is one hopping from rock to rock with a little ‘bouquet’ of wildflowers in its mouth,” said coauthor David Wright, recently retired from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. They spend their summers carrying mouthfuls of grass and wildflowers from mountain meadows to “haypiles” tucked away in the rocky habitat they call home. Pikas, related to rabbits and hares, are about eight inches long with a stout body and round ears. But not for long-the study forecasts that by 2050 climate change will cause a 97 percent decline in suitable climate conditions for pikas in the Lake Tahoe area. “Mount Rose and Desolation Wilderness are still great places to see pikas,” Stewart said. Hikers and backpackers can still see pikas in the mountains surrounding the area of extinction. “This time, however, we’re seeing the effects of climate change unfold on a scale of decades as opposed to millennia.” “The loss of pikas from this large area of otherwise suitable habitat echoes prehistoric range collapses that happened when temperatures increased after the last ice age,” said lead author Joseph Stewart, a Ph.D. This local extinction is the largest area of pika extinction yet reported for the modern era. Researchers surveyed pika habitat throughout the north Lake Tahoe area and found that pikas had disappeared from an area that stretches from near Tahoe City to Truckee, more than ten miles away, and includes Mount Pluto. The American pika, a small mammal adapted to high altitudes and cold temperatures, has died out from a 64-square-mile span of habitat in California’s northern Sierra Nevada mountains, and the cause appears to be climate change, according to a new study published August 30 in PLOS One.
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