Pikas and Marmots

I am hard-pressed to name a mountain mammal that is my favorite, but I do love pikas and marmots. When hiking and wandering in the high subalpine or alpine areas and I hear a shrill whistle or shriek, I know I am in the territory of either or both marmots and pikas. I love seeing animals in their natural habitats and both species are super cute. Equally interesting to me, however, is how they provide a metaphor for ways to think about living one’s life. They provide contrasts that are different but correspondingly compelling to ponder.

American pikas are members of the rabbit family. They are sometimes referred to as Arctic Rabbits. The pika is small, 6-8 inches long, with tiny ears and a little tail. They do not hibernate but spend their entire lives high in the alpine among the tundra meadows, rocks, and snow. They can be seen in alpine areas scurrying around in both the summer and the winter. In the summer they are busy harvesting “hay” that they store in huge piles to help them through the winter. They are sometimes called “nature’s farmers.”

Marmots are ground-living rodents within the same family as beavers, groundhogs, and chipmunks. They also live in the subalpine and alpine areas. Marmots inhabit open rocky country in mountainous regions. They live in burrows usually in colonies. Marmots hibernate during the winter and mate immediately thereafter. They feed chiefly on grasses and other green plants and spend their summer days feeding frenetically or sunning themselves lazily. They can vary in length from 15 – 25 inches excluding their 5 – 12- inch bushy tails that swish up and down and back and forth as they move.

Marmots and pikas often live side by side and benefit from their similar systems of high squeals to warn each other of possible predators. Other than their mutual protection of one another, however, they could not be more different. Pikas are vigorous spending their summers storing food since they will have to have enough provisions to live under the snow in the rocks all winter. They will be quieter in winter, but visible and audible all year around.

Marmots, on the other hand, spend their summers storing up food by eating as much as they can and getting as fat as they can so they can survive in their 8-month winter hibernation. They are a true hibernator. They will go into deep sleep in late September and not wake up until early May when they have their young and start the eating and sunbathing cycle over again.

I relate most to the pikas. I like to be active. I like to have things to do. I like to be out and about in the winter. I relish eating but I really do not enjoy sleeping and would likely make a terrible marmot, even though I think they are really cute. I admire the pikas and their farming habits. I love to hear them in the winter as they evoke their warning calls while the marmots are well underground sound asleep, oblivious to everything.

I worry about the pikas since they must store enough food to last the winter and hope that they get enough snow to insulate themselves to a steady 32-degree temperature underground. They are an indicator species of climate change. They show evidence of being a harbinger of dramatic things to come if climate change continues to create warmer winters with less snowfall. I fear for the fate of both the marmots and the pikas as well as our species if we do not do something immediately about the changing environment. It may affect these critters first, but can we be far behind?