The Mountain Studies Institute has two training sessions involving classroom and field work scheduled for people who want to monitor a high-elevation relative of the rabbit that may be losing its home to global warming.
The pika, which resembles a hamster, is disappearing in some Western mountains. Biologists say the tiny member of the lagomorph family (along with rabbits and hares) is looking for cooler climes.
Pikas are native to cold climates in Asia, North America and Eastern Europe. They tend to live in crevices on rocky mountainsides.
A number of pika-monitoring programs exist in the United States, among them the 4-year-old study by Silverton-based Mountain Studies Institute.
MSI training for volunteer monitors is scheduled Saturday in Pagosa Springs and Aug. 1-2 in Durango and Silverton.
Interested people should meet at 9 a.m. Saturday in the Pagosa Springs library, 811 San Juan St. Volunteers will carpool to Wolfcreek Pass.
“The field work is going to be done first to avoid possible afternoon thunderstorms,” said MSI education coordinator Emily Olson. “We’ll return to Pagosa Springs for the classroom portion.”
There, volunteers will learn how to create an online pika-observation project through a citizen-science program and how to upload information to a website.
On Aug. 1, Chris Ray, a professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who has studied pikas for 30 years, will speak at the Public Lands Center, 15 Burnett Court, in Durango.
After her presentation, she will lead the classroom portion of training for volunteers. The program begins at 5:30 p.m.
Field-work training, again with Ray, will be held the next day in Silverton at the MSI office, 740 Reese St. Volunteers should meet at 9 a.m. at the MSI office.
Contact Olson at emily@mountainstudies.org to sign up and for either training session.
Shaye Wolf, climate science director at the Center for Biological Diversity in San Francisco, said pikas are disappearing in the Great Basin (Nevada and Southern Oregon) because of drought and temperature.
In 2010, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service denied the pika protection under the Endangered Species Act, Wolf said.
“They thought there are enough of them, and that they have the capacity to adjust to climate change,” Wolf said. “That, despite that their numbers are declining in the Great Basin.”
Mountain Studies Institute, now in its fourth year of monitoring pikas, has 44 sites where it needs volunteer observers every year. The sites range from accessible roadside burrows to ones that require a full day’s hike over rugged terrain to reach.
Pikas are still found in the San Juan Mountains, unlike Northern Colorado and Wyoming where they are no longer sighted in some of their former haunts.
If pika population is declining, it could result in protection under the Endangered Species Act.
Pika habitat also is found in Nevada, Oregon, California and Utah. The cute animals live usually at 9,000 feet elevation and above. Scientists think they are losing habitat because their thick fur makes them vulnerable to heat stroke even at relatively low temperatures.
daler@durangoherald.com
In an earlier version of this story, the gender of Shaye Wolf was incorrectly stated as the result of an editing error.
