Pika facing extinction (a photo and a link)

[ConsAreLiars]

ABC News had a story about the die off of this tiny member of the rabbit family and I remembered this photo I took a decade ago. In some way, it seemed like fit, and, in that sense, also symbolizes our own uncertain future. The ABC story is at http://www.abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=3155909&page=1

[KillCapitalism]

1. Bummer!

Looks like a really cute animal, would be sad to see them go.

[ConsAreLiars]

2. First they killed off the ....

(etc.), then the rest of us. All in the service of Mammon.

Welcome to DU. Given the massive number of posts, look especially for those by kpete, WillPitt, H20Man, Octafish ... many more, but those are a good start.

(edit to fix usual typo)

[piedmont]

3. At least we'll still have...

[ConsAreLiars]

4. kick (n/t)

[lonestarnot]

5. ahhhh. Cheney's been eat'n 'em for breakfast.

[nam78_two]

6. K&R.nt

[ConsAreLiars]

8. Thank you - some quotes from the article:

The American pika likes it chilly -- in fact, needs it chilly, as it sports a thick fur coat it does not shed in summer. Scientists report pikas can die in under an hour if temperatures reach much above 75 degrees. Trouble is, warmer temperatures have been creeping steadily up the slopes in recent decades due to man-made global warming, experts say.
...
"Pikas are poor dispersers -- they can't just race over and recolonize an old site from another mountain," Beever explained.

"It's almost always too hot down in the valleys they'd have to cross," he said. "They'd run into uncrossable highways that weren't there when the last ice age ended. And they'd have to be out in the open, so they'd be in great danger of getting picked off by hawks."

So, with temperatures rising, the only way pikas have to go is up, chased by the steadily climbing warmer air that climate change is bringing -- and will continue to bring -- for at least the next 50 years, scientists say.

And when that heat reaches the top of a peak, that mountain's pikas are finished.

[nam78_two]

9. Thanks for posting this

Depressing but we need to face the facts...

[Odin2005]

7. Tell kids that Global Warming is killing Pikachu, THAT should wake people up...

...to the problem.