BILLINGS, Mont. – Federal officials on Tuesday rejected greater protections for six species including the rabbit-like American pika, which researchers warn is disappearing from areas of the Western U.S. as climate change alters its mountain habitat.
The pika’s range is shrinking across southern Utah, northeastern California and in the Great Basin that covers most of Nevada and parts of Utah, Oregon, Idaho and California, according to a U.S. Geological Survey study released last month.
Ambient temperatures of 78 degrees Fahrenheit or higher can kill the mountain-dwelling mammals, wildlife officials say.
But the study was not available when a student from New York petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in April to protect the animal under the Endangered Species Act, agency spokesman Brian Hires said.
“We always try to use the best available science for our decisions,” Hires said.
The government denied a prior request for pika protections in 2010, saying not all populations were declining.
The wildlife service is unlikely to pursue further action on pikas on its own, officials said, citing a heavy workload of other imperiled species.
President Barack Obama mentioned the plight of the pika this summer when he spoke at Yosemite National Park about the damage climate change is inflicting on national parks. He said the pika was being forced further upslope at Yosemite to escape the heat.
Wildlife officials also rejected petitions to protect the Wyoming pocket gopher, two species of Alaskan birds known as eiders, a Caribbean iguana and a salamander found in Arkansas.
Officials said petitions for four species merit further review.
Those are the Florida scrub lizard; the Joshua tree of Arizona, California, Utah and Nevada; an amphibian known as the lesser Virgin Islands skink; and the Lassics lupine, a flowering plant found at high elevations in the North Coast mountains of California.
For those species, the wildlife service invited scientists and others to submit information that could help the agency in its decision.
