Pikas Dying From The Heat

14 Responses to Pikas Dying From The Heat

1. Dave N says:

   January 6, 2011 at 3:13 pm

   It’s the Al Gore effect again. Whenever someone releases a report how warming is affecting a species in a certain area, that area experiences extreme cold.

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2. Not to Nitpick . . . says:

   January 6, 2011 at 3:36 pm

   . . . and definitely acknowledging your main point, but I believe the Sierra Nevada lie in the dark green (-3 to -12 degrees) and smaller blue (-12 to -18 degrees) areas along the California/Nevada boundary.

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   • stevengoddard says:

     January 6, 2011 at 3:41 pm

     Pikas live all over the Rockies too.

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     • Not to Nitpick . . . says:

       January 6, 2011 at 4:56 pm

       Right, but neither the part you excerpted nor the original article specifies any geographical area other than “the Sierra Nevada Mountain [R]ange” (unless–trying to help you out here–that writer’s quoting a U Colorado “scientist” implies that his taxpayer-funded findings apply to the whole Intermountain West). For that matter, according to the graphic, only a few relatively tiny areas in “the Rockies,” broadly defined, show temps -24 to -30 degrees lower.

       As the name of your very salutary website implies, accuracy is (or should be) the sine qua non of “real science.”

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       • stevengoddard says:

         January 6, 2011 at 4:57 pm

         ZZZzzzz…..
     • Not to Nitpick . . . says:

       January 6, 2011 at 5:03 pm

       http://www.sortarealscience.com

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     • suyts says:

       January 6, 2011 at 5:48 pm

       lol, so Not to, are you arguing Steve should have been more specific about how much area or how many places are -30? Or that it is real important to distinguish the places that are -30 from the places that are -12 to -18? I’m wondering, because I’m thinking about writing a paper on people that will accept a global generalization of questionable veracity while becoming hung up on minutia of information not relevant to the topic of discussion.

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     • peterhodges says:

       January 7, 2011 at 2:18 am

       and that map is not exactly representative of reality.

       i live in the sierra nevada, and it has been -5 at night for two weeks straight, and has not gotten above freezing since before christmas. i don’t know what ‘climatology’ is supposed be but usually it is only that cold once or twice in an entire winter…not for three entire weeks. (including the last week of nov)

       and the snowpack 200-300%. some areas are 100% for the entire year

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     • peterhodges says:

       January 7, 2011 at 2:25 am

       okay according to wunderground at least, we are running 20 to 30 degrees below climatology in the sierra right now. for two weeks.

       the low at mammoth airport was -22 that’s 40 degrees below climatology

       -5 at my house.

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3. Russell C says:

   January 6, 2011 at 4:20 pm

   I have vacationed in the San Juans of Southwestern Colorado practically every summer since the early 1970s. The pika population is the same as it ever was, as near as I can tell. They are hard to spot but you can’t miss their squeak calls if you have good hearing. But one of the more entertaining aspects in the last several years is that I had to time my visits a bit later in July so that the 4×4 jeep tours I take could actually transverse the Imogene and Black Bear passes, because that’s how late they’ve been blocked by snow.

   I’d think the pikas would have to move down in elevation if the tops of the mountains are getting a tad more inhospitable…..

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4. Mike Davis says:

   January 6, 2011 at 6:51 pm

   Having fished Lakes Mead and Mojave during the summer months I can attest to the hardiness of Big Horn Sheep. Their range covers many different climate zones from f’n hot to witch t cold.
   The CLB is getting more desperate and these reports can now be expected to increase each day. The best one was the Lizards will be affected by warming inn the desert! I still chuckle about that one!

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5. James Mayeau says:

   January 7, 2011 at 12:39 am

   The eco nyts originally hired a guy named Beever to study Pika exterpations in the Fort Bidwell area of Nevada. He found a few areas in Northern Nevada where the native species (including pika and big horn sheep) had been driven out by competition with feral horses. The horses were originally released into the wild by ranchers when the Modoc Indians surrendered and army contracts dried up.

   These would be the same horse herds that the government culls biannually – the same culling that the eco nuts protest and cry their croc tears to the media over.

   The pika affected were exterpated due to the horses eating all of the hay – not by any imagined temperature changes to their environment.

   The NRDC and WWF deliberately overlooked the truth and then pretended the local situation in No Nevada applied to the whole of California.

   So every year a small army of well intentiond dipshits from UC Davis head off on a fieldtrip to survey the pika population. And every year they count right up until they reach the same count as the year before, never completing a true thorough survey.
   All they’re interested in isto see if there are less, not if the pika pop is growing.

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   • rw says:

     January 8, 2011 at 12:59 am

     This kind of thing would be amusing if it weren’t so depressing …

     I don’t know if you’re familiar with any of fine work on wild mammals in the midwestern and western states carried out by field zoologists during the first part of the 20th century. (I have some familiarity [although it’s dimming] with the many studies of rodents [and pikas!].)This was before the universities were overrun by Pod People (some in the guise of researchers). Apparently they still know some of the techniques, if not the animating spirit, of scientific investigation as it once existed.

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6. peterhodges says:

   January 7, 2011 at 1:33 am

   so he’s worried about the sierra nevada mountains, where snowpack is 200-300% right now and the top 4 snow years are in the last 10 years?

   it’s more likely cold and snow would be killing them lately…

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