Tiny endangered pika says boo to big polluters

A little critter could pack a big political bite now that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has decided the hamster-sized rabbit relative may require protection under the Endangered Species Act. The American pika could prove more mischevious than your average endangered species because its disappearance has been linked to global warming.
Protection for the pika could give politicians leverage to use the Endangered Species Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The polar bear, whose habitat is melting beneath its enormous feet, received ESA protection a year ago, but the Bush Adminstration imposed a special rule six weeks later that prevented the government from considering greenhouse gas emissions as threats to polar bear habitat. The Obama Administration must decide by Saturday whether to reverse that rule.
Now comes the pika. According to the animal’s formidable attorney:
The American pika (Ochotona princeps) lives in boulder fields near mountain peaks in the western United States. Adapted to cold alpine conditions, pikas are intolerant of high temperatures and can die from overheating when exposed to temperatures as low as 78 degrees Fahrenheit for just a few hours. Global warming threatens pikas by exposing them to heat stress, lowering food availability in the mountain meadows where they forage, reducing the amount of time when they can gather food, and reducing the insulating snowpack during winter.
The pika is represented by Earthjustice, an environmental law firm, because the U.S. ignored a 2007 petition for pika protection by the Center for Biological Diversity (visit their pika page). The Center sued successfully last August, the US announced today that the pika merits review, and now the pika’s status will be decided by February 1, 2010.