Pika status as an indicator of global warming

[betsy]

Hmm -- there a may be an overemphasis on birds in our forum -- I failed to make a forum category for all the other things that Audubon concerns itself with. Just discovered this slightly over one-year-old article while on a tangent from googling info about song learning in birds.

Tiny pikas seem to be on march toward extinction in Great Basin

The tiny rabbit-like American pika, an animal species considered to be one of the best canaries in a coal mine for detecting global warming in the western United States, appears to be veering toward the brink of extinction in the Great Basin.

New research indicates the small mammals, which are very sensitive to high temperatures, are being pushed upward in their mountain habitat and are running out of places to live. Climate change and human activities appear to be primary factors imperiling the pika, reports University of Washington archaeologist Donald Grayson in the current issue of the Journal of Biogeography.

The remainder of this article from the University of Washington news is here: http://uwnews.org/article.asp?articleid=21490 (http://uwnews.org/article.asp?articleid=21490)

[Maestro]

Wow. Once again thanks for the article. Global warming, whether we agree on the cause of it, is certainly happening and its implications need to be addressed. These poor little guys are dying off. Some will say, "Hey, it is just some small animal." "Why do I care?" Well, because one day it's the pika, the next day....:mad: I want to make sure my kids have an Earth, they can enjoy. It pains me to see how many lakes in Texas have no swimming and no fishing warnings or outright bans. The same goes for many Texas rivers including the Trinity from north of Ft. Worth through the mid-cities and Dallas and on down into the southern counties. It's a shame really. I am certainly not advocating returning to the Stone Age, but we need to be more cognizant of how we produce and discard our many industrial age products.