3: Pika Story
This “chapter” is written for the story of Vivid Glacier, a climate change glacier storytelling project organized by Mauri Pelto and executed by a variety of glaciologists, explorers and wonderers. As the rest of the chapters (written from other organisms points of view) emerge, I’ll share the links.
Also, many thanks to Emily Hyde for providing details from her experience counting pikas in the high deserts of Oregon!
EEE!
Hawk circles the sky, and I sound the alarm. The other pikas hear my shriek and we all dart beneath rocks. Summer sun bares down on the talus slope where I have lived my entire life. It’s the start of an August day, the hottest time of the year.
To avoid overheating I rest in the cool shadows during the day and forage diurnally. At this time of year, I don’t have to look far to find nourishing shrubs and flowers. The alpine meadows scattered across the slope are at the peak of summer abundance. Meltwater trickles down from Vivid glacier throughout the summer, and this cold water feeds the alpine vegetation. I gather mouthfuls of thistles, fireweed and alpine grasses. Once the stems are dry, I scuttle them to caches in the rock, deep piles of collected plants called haypiles. These will feed me throughout the winter.
EEE!
I shriek again, unsure if my fellow critters can hear or understand. This is not an alarm for the presence of owl or weasel or snake. It is something more dangerous than a predator—it is a temperature warning. Of any of the inhabitants of Vivid Glacier, we know the dangers of rising temperatures the best. We pikas die if exposed to temperatures of over 78°F for too long, temperatures that the lower rock fields now reach regularly in the summer. Generations ago, my family lived at the base of this slope- but even in the shelter of the rocks, the heat became deadly. So we have climbed to cooler, higher places. Pika by pika, we are forced to establish new homes higher on the mountain.
Temperature is forcing everyone to move up- the glacier, the forest, our predators and our forage. Sometimes we move at different paces, so each season contains unpredictable risks and possibilities. Forests take root in scree slopes that once were open snow and sun. Not long ago, the talus pile where I live was covered by the cold weight of Vivid Glacier. Currently, the rocks are dry four to six months of the year and crammed with a mosaic of alpine vegetation. It’s a good home for now, but I will nose my kids up the slope when they are born. Summer temperatures keep rising, and we must too. Between here and the remnant of Vivid Glacier and the mountain top, there isn’t that much room to move. What will happen when all of the alpine life is restricted to a mountaintop? Will it become a summit of sun-bleached bones?
This is looking to be a really hot summer. What can we do? I shriek for my neighbors, but my voice feels unusually small. I hear no chirps from downslope—and I worry that my lower relatives are dying. We are powerless in the heat.
Months pass, and the air cools. I’ve survived the heat of summer and stashed away many twigs and wildflowers. Now it begins to snow, light flurries at first, and then a huge storm bring deeper drifts. Within the rocks, I sit upon my favorite haypile and the slope grows very quiet.
Unlike bear, I don’t hibernate, and unlike many of the birds, I cannot migrate. I need a thick snow blanket to insulate my home. When there is enough snow, the ground temperature is stable at 32°F, and I can survive. Without snow, winter cold can be deadly. I know that we pikas often fail to reproduce when there is not an insulative snowpack. Additionally, our favorite plants suffer frost damage and we have less to eat when melt-off begins. The talus slope is better with baby pikas and abundant forage. In solitude, I hope for plenty of snowfall, especially if this winter is a cold one. Then I scurry out to excavate an air shaft and build a tunnel to access my haypiles. Even in winter, I don’t sit still for long.
Winter passes. Under the changing surface of the snow, I have survived another season. The only place I have ever known is the alpine, where blazing summer days contrast chilly nights and even more frigid winters. In the climate of the past, we pikas were well equipped. But every year is different now. Despite our adaptions for living in the extreme reaches of the alpine, this stochasticity challenges our biological strategies. Although this winter brought plenty of snow to envelope my territory, at the bottom of the slope where my ancestors once lived, things were different. There was little snow, exposing the plants and animals to bitter cold and low moisture. The alpine meadows withered, and shrubs took their place. It seems there is no way to survive down there now.
Another change this year is the quick arrival of spring. I get moving and foraging a month earlier than my ancestors did. Springtime seems as lush as ever, yet when I look for my favorite tufts of forget-me-nots, they’re no longer there. My favorite plants migrate upslope, or disappear, and new ones march into their rootwells. All I can do is change my diet.
Over the summer, less and less water trickles down from Vivid glacier, leaving the foliage thirsty and skimpy. I stockpile what I can, preparing for the uncertain months ahead. August feels much hotter, and I get close to overheating many days. The stress and solitude fatigue me.
Below, the talus slopes in the valley are ghostly quiet. No more EEE’s! rise on the mountain thermals. There are a few more pikas above me, at the upper limit of the rock below Vivid glacier. Our population struggles to find the spot where we can survive both summer and winter temperatures and find enough to eat. We are quickly running out of space. But the temperature marches constantly upward, past where we can go.
We will climb until the heat bleaches our bones.
Heed the warning of the Pika, sentinel of Vivid Glacier.
EEE!
More:
Ecological consequences of anomalies in atmospheric moisture and snowpack by Johnston et al. 2019
Pikas versus Trump, a vengeful game/app from the Center for Biological Diversity