WASHINGTON – Compared to the polar bear, the American pika is tiny.
Weighing only 4 to 6 ounces, this rabbitlike mammal with thick brown hair, which lives on boulder-covered slopes in Western mountains, could represent the latest effort to use the Endangered Species Act to combat global warming.
Environmentalists filed a lawsuit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Sacramento to force the Bush administration to decide whether to list the pika for protection. The lawsuit claims the animal is threatened by rising temperatures and says the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has dragged its feet on whether to list it.
In May, the polar bear was protected as a threatened species under the act, but Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne made clear the Endangered Species Act was not intended to regulate climate change.
Environmentalists dispute the White House approach.
Greg Loarie of Earthjustice, an environmental legal firm representing the Center for Biological Diversity in the suit, said the pika, which is intolerant of high temperatures, is an appropriate animal to test the their contention. "The pika is very much the polar bear of the lower 48," he said.
More than a third of the documented pika populations in Nevada and Oregon have disappeared, said Shaye Wolf, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. They can die if exposed to temperatures of 80 degrees Fahrenheit or higher for a few hours, he said.
"The pika is the American West's canary in the coal mine," Wolf said. "As temperatures rise, pika populations at lower elevations are being driven to extinction, pushing pikas further upslope until they have nowhere else to go."
Call Les Blumenthal, McClatchy Washington Bureua, (202) 383-0008.
What You Should Know About Comments on Sacbee.com
Sacbee.com is happy to provide a forum for reader interaction, discussion, feedback and reaction to our stories. However, we reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments or ban users who can't play nice. (See our full terms of service here.)
Here are some rules of the road:
• Keep your comments civil. Don't insult one another or the subjects of our articles. If you think a comment violates our guidelines click the "report abuse" button to notify the moderators. Responding to the comment will only encourage bad behavior.
• Don't use profanities, vulgarities or hate speech. This is a general interest news site. Sometimes, there are children present. Don't say anything in a way you wouldn't want your own child to hear.
• Do not attack other users; focus your comments on issues, not individuals.
• Stay on topic. Only post comments relevant to the article at hand. If you want to discuss an issue with a specific user, click on his profile name and send him a direct message.
• Do not copy and paste outside material into the comment box.
• Don't repeat the same comment over and over. We heard you the first time.
• Do not use the commenting system for advertising. That's spam and it isn't allowed.
• Don't use all capital letters. That's akin to yelling and not appreciated by the audience.
You should also know that The Sacramento Bee does not screen comments before they are posted. You are more likely to see inappropriate comments before our staff does, so we ask that you click the "report abuse" button to submit those comments for moderator review. You also may notify us via email at feedback@sacbee.com. Note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us the profile name of the user who made the comment. Remember, comment moderation is subjective. You may find some material objectionable that we won't and vice versa.
If you submit a comment, the user name of your account will appear along with it. Users cannot remove their own comments once they have submitted them, but you may ask our staff to retract one of your comments by sending an email to feedback@sacbee.com. Again, make sure you note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us your profile name.
About Comments
Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "report abuse" button below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.