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John Daley Reporting Global warming is changing the landscape for animals worldwide, and in our region too.
Scientists believe climate change is putting the survival of one charismatic mountain mammal at risk.
When it's hot out, we humans can adjust, go inside and turn on the air conditioner. Not so for many animals, including one that lives at high altitude here in Utah.
Scientists believe the pika, unable to adapt to higher temperatures, could become extinct.
If you've spent time in the mountains, you've probably crossed paths with the American pika, a tailless relative of the rabbit which lives at high altitude, storing piles of hay for winter, and darting from rock to rock.
Denise Dearing/ Associate Professor of Biology, University of Utah: "They're a very charismatic animal. People like seeing them in the mountains. People go to the mountains ofentimes to see pikas and marmots. So it would be a shame to lose them."
U. of U. biologist Denise Dearing, who's studied the pika, says researchers are increasingly worried the pika will become one of the first mammals to fall victim to climate change.
A USGS scientist surveyed 25 populations around the West where pikas had been recorded. Over the past century, which saw a one degree rise in global temperatures, the animals vanished entirely from roughly a third of those sites.
Pikas are densely furred and unable to live in warm temperatures--less than 6 hours in 77 degree heat. Other alpine species may be able to adapt, moving north or higher up. But since pikas live in a narrow range, between tree line and mountain peaks, they may be especially vulnerable to global warming, perhaps due to more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere produced by the burning of fossil fuels.
Carbon dioxide can make plants pikas feed on toxic.
Denise Dearing/ Associate Professor of Biology, University of Utah: "It's possible that the plants became more toxic. It's also possible that it's just too hot for them to live in those areas."
Pikas fill a unique niche as both prey for raptors and master diggers, helping soil support wild flowers.
Pikas shelter under snow, but climate models suggest mountain snowpacks which provide 75% of the West's water are decreasing.
Fred Wagner/ Professor Emeritus, Utah State University: "The way we live, things are going to get hotter. Our summers are going to get much warmer. Our winters are going to be milder. We're goig to see snowpacks in the mountain ranges shrinking. That's happening over the West as a whole."
Increasingly scientists are drawing the link between rising temperatures and other developments, like more extreme weather events, more and larger Western wildfires, and more species on the brink.
Scientists are documenting a long line of disturbing climate trends. Scientists see the pika as part of a disturbing trend, species worldwide on the brink due to global warming.
At recent conferences global climate change here in Utah, researchers have spelled out the dangers from the Arctic, which is rapidly losing sea ice..
Mark Serreze/ Senior Research Scientist, Uni. of Colorado: "There are some projections now that polar bears for example might be extinct by the end of the century."
...to the oceans.
Jean-Michel Cousteau/ President, Ocean Futures Society: "Less and less abundance of marine life. The habitats are being destroyed. The global warming is becoming such an issue that coral reefs are dying and it's happening right in front of our eyes. We know exactly what's going on."
Coal miners long used canaries to detect toxic gases...when the birds stopped singing...it was a deadly warning. Researchers say we should see pikas, missing in the mountains...the same way.
Denise Dearing/ Associate Professor of Biology, University of Utah: "Pikas are vocal animals and their silence is telling us we need to take immediat action against global warming."
A recent study in the Journal Nature predicts global warming could lead to the extinction of a quarter of all species of plants and animals on Earth by the year 2050.
It found many of those creatures could be saved if we make a rapid shift to new energy technologies which don't produce greenhouse gases.
