While the American pika cannot boast the majesty of the polar bear or the symbolism of the gray wolf, scientists insist the furry mammal is just as deserving of protection from global warming.
The Center for Biological Diversity accuses the government of giving the pika the back of its hand, and the nonprofit is in two Sacramento courtrooms to force regulators to work for the creatures' survival.
The tiny mammals live in the boulder fields near mountain peaks in the western United States, including the northern Sierra. Because they are extremely heat-sensitive and susceptible to hyperthermia at temperatures above 75 degrees, "global warming presents the gravest threat," the center's lawsuits claim.
Climate change "threatens pikas by shortening the time available for them to gather food, changing the types of plants that grow where they live, reducing the insulating snowpack during winter and, most directly, causing the animals to die from overheating," they claim.
According to climate experts, temperatures in the nation's western states in this century will increase twice as much as they did in the last century. This could eliminate the pika in much of its habitat, they say.
"The pika is the American West's canary in the coal mine," said Shaye Wolf, a biologist with the biological diversity center. "As temperatures rise, pika populations at lower elevations are being driven to extinction, pushing pikas further upslope until they have nowhere left to go."
But California and federal wildlife officials turned their backs on pleas for help for the pika, so the center has challenged their inaction in court. Earthjustice, an Oakland public interest law firm, filed both suits on behalf of the center.
A California Fish and Game Commission report issued earlier this year declared neither it nor its corresponding department have any legal responsibility for how wildlife adapts to increased greenhouse gases, "despite numerous state laws and policies that require the agencies to consider and respond to climate change," the Superior Court suit charges.
The commission's "attempt to bury its head in the sand rather than deal with the impact of global warming on wildlife is an embarrassment to our state, which is a leader in climate policy," said Earthjustice attorney Greg Loarie.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ignored two legally mandated deadlines – a 90-day initial finding and a 12-month permanent finding – to act on a petition filed more than a year ago asking the agency to list the pika as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act, the suit in Sacramento federal court alleges.
"Preparation of a 90-day finding on your petition is of great importance to us," said Fish and Wildlife Acting Regional Director Gary Mowad in a January letter to the center. "However, we do not currently have a budget allocation to work on this finding.
"We have a tentative budget allocation to complete a 90-day finding on the pika in fiscal year 2009. If additional funding becomes available this fiscal year, our next priorities are to complete a 12-month finding on the white-tailed prairie dog and a 90-day finding on the pika."
However, the suit says, appellate case law supports the center's position that the agency should act immediately on the petition, "regardless of … workload or budgetary constraints."
A Dec. 5 hearing is set before U.S. District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. on the biological diversity center's request that he order Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and Fish and Wildlife Director H. Dale Hall to move on the petition within 30 days.
The federal lawsuit claims there has been a 36 percent loss of the pika population in the Great Basin of Nevada and Oregon because of hotter, drier climates at lower elevations.
In the Sierra, at Yosemite National Park, it claims, scientists have documented that at least one pika population has shifted upslope 500 feet in the last 90 years.
"The most likely cause of this shift is a warming climate; temperatures in Yosemite Valley rose by 5.4 degrees … over the past century," the suit declares. "In the Sierra Nevada, temperatures are projected to increase the most in the higher elevations – by as much as 11.3 degrees" at the end of this century.
But, no matter how imperiled a species may be, none of the ESA's protections kick in until the Interior Department secretary lists it as threatened or endangered. That sets in motion the act's provisions for protective regulation, consultation requirements and recovery efforts.
Call The Bee's Denny Walsh, (916) 321-1189.
