Mountain Pika

Watercolor, Colored Pencil, and Conte, 7” x 10”, 2023

The American Pika typically lives in mountainous regions in talus slopes (loose rock.) They are very sensitive to climate change for a number of reasons. One of the major ones is that they rely on enough snowpack in the winter to stay insulated, as they do not hibernate. They also cannot handle extreme heat events. The map in this piece shows pika distribution in Washington state: the dark yellow is their core habitat, and the light yellow is marginal habitat. On the right is a graph of average global temperature from 1990-2022, as part of the story about a species that is so sensitive to heat.

The map I used is from the Nature Mapping Program: http://naturemappingfoundation.org/natmap/maps/wa/mammals/WA_pika.html

Average global temperature data: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/