Is the pika doomed because of climate change?
DMA: “Doomed” may be too strong a word, I think, because pika habitat is more extensive and more continuous here in the Southern Rockies than on the smaller, isolated “sky island” mountain ranges in the Southwest or the Great Basin. Still, there’s little question that the alpine range of the pika will be diminished as “life zones” move upslope. Further, what is now more-or-less continuous habitat will be fragmented to some extent and on those fragments pikas will be more susceptible to local extinction and as the fragments become more isolated re-colonization will be more difficult. In short, seeing your favorite mammal is going to get more difficult over the coming decades, I suspect. (At least it will demand more wonderful hikes of greater duration.) NW: Is there a lesser-known or underappreciated mammal in the book that you’d like to point out? DMA: That’s a hard question. Most of the mammalian fauna—bats, shrews, mice and rats—is underappreciated, perhaps because we appreciate what
