The biggest threat to the Pikas is the 20 feet of snow and the endless winter we are facing in the Rockies.
Disrupting the Borg is expensive and time consuming!
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Empathy really is over-used. Whilst I can feel sympathy for the plight of unfortunate creatures, I shall never, I expect, be truly at one with them, or share the feelings of, say, some lagomorph. I suspect, however, that empathy is code for “that special compassion which only the morally and politically correct have”.
This may be another candidate for the Tiergarten polar bear pool. (Or maybe for reaching into a pika’s nest to pet the “furry friend”? I suspect that would result in a nasty surprise, too.)
Cute little “furry friends” don’t need empathy for an imaginary problem. But climate scientists do when their grant money runs dry, even if they aren’t so cute.
Baghdad Romm
Those delicate creatures that can only live in a narrow range of temperatures do not exist. The one in the Rockies now are imposters of the hardier type because the delicate ones died out 10,000 years ago when the temperatures were rising from the Glacial Maximum and were about the same temperature as today but continued warming until 8,000 years ago!
The threat is as real as the Easter Bunny!
So, the critter that lives in the cool earth -which a few feet down has a constant temperature, will keel over when it comes up and encounters a 1/2 degree change from 30 years ago when It wasn’t alive?
The American Pika has been declaired a Species Of Least Concern. Never let the facts get in the way of a good scare story. 🙂
http://www.iucnredlist.org/apps/redlist/details/41267/0
But Jimbo… the models man! Things may seem OK now but they’re doomed by the planetary fever. It has been predicted.
The one in the photo appears to be delirious from the heat already. Has a mouth full od lodgepole pine vegetation which I have never seen them use before; the ones in my region gather deciduous forbs. Or maybe it is just adding insulation to its burrow to avoid the oppressive heat?