and reducing insulating snowpack that protects them from cold snaps in the winter. Most directly, warming can also cause the animals to die from overheating. Protecting the pika as endangered would ...

There are around 30 species of pika across the globe and, like their close relatives rabbits and hares, none of them hibernate. Instead, they see out the harsh winter months by feeding on a cache ...

Pika are susceptible to over-heating ... They will lay the plants out in the sun to dry before storing them underground for winter. This stops the plants from getting moldy.

and nine of 25 historic pika populations have recently been extirpated. OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Pikas will cache plants with high concentrations of toxic chemicals in the haypiles that sustain them ...