American Pika

Researchers at NOROCK are using many methods to understand how and why these changes are happening, information vital to resource managers to help plan for ways to conserve these resources into the future. Efforts are focused on the American pika, a small plant-eater that resembles a hamster and lives typically in high-elevation rocky slopes across many mountain ranges in the American West. By using this climate-sensitive species as a model, scientists hope to unravel how climate may affect these and other mountaindwelling wildlife and their habitats.