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Climate Change

Grand Teton National Park Researchers Keeping an Eye on Pikas

Climate-driven change in mountain ecosystems is readily visible across the National Park System. In Glacier National Park rivers of ice are shrinking, in Rocky Mountain National Park bark beetles are ravaging forests, and in Yellowstone National Park atypically warm stream waters in summer are stressing fish. To better gauge the climate's impact on pikas in their park, Grand Teton National Park biologists are working to establish baseline data for these tiny creatures.

Could the Diminutive Pika Succeed Where the Polar Bear Failed In Battling Climate Change?

During my six-month internship with the Student Conservation Association, I had the opportunity to collect data for a field study on the habitat effects of climate change. Our crew of four searched for pikas while backpacking along the rocky slopes of California’s Eastern Sierra Nevada. We came to understand several traits of the pika that could make this elusive alpine mammal an important ally in the movement to stop climate change.

Endangered Species Coalition Lists 10 Species Endangered By Climate Change

A small turtle from the eastern U.S. A species of trout native to Glacier and North Cascades national parks. Grizzly bears. A prairie orchard. A coral. These are among the ten plant, fish, animal, and bird species listed in a new report as being the "hottest" species imperiled by climate change.
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Olympic National Park Boosts Stream Flows to Help Salmon, But Might Not Be Enough

Reports on climate change and national parks often mention parks as valuable in helping wildlife species survive by providing environmental sanctuaries of sorts. But a case playing out at Olympic National Park demonstrates how parks might not always be able to provide wildlife with what they need during climatic changes.

Latest Climate Change Report Lists 25 National Parks Most At Risk

Another report on climate change and its impacts on national parks arrived Thursday, with a list of 25 parks most at risk. While it offered no real new recommendations beyond those that have been called for by previous reports, its authors voiced optimism that corporate America is becoming more concerned about climate change and would become a force in addressing the problem and its impacts.

Interior Secretary Salazar Launches "Coordinated Strategy" To Address Climate Change Impacts on Federal Landscapes

In an understandable effort to get all land-management agencies on the same page when it comes to climate change, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Monday signed off on a strategy to develop some coordination in how climate change might already be affecting, or could in the future, the country's land, water, ocean, fish, wildlife, and cultural resources.
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Climate Change and National Parks: A Survival Guide for a Warming World -- Red Knot and Other Northeastern Migratory Birds

Each spring, certain areas in Acadia National Park in Maine are closed to visitors as peregrine falcons return to their ancestral nesting sites on seaside cliffs. With great anticipation, park visitors gather below the cliffs with binoculars, spotting scopes, and zoom lenses to watch the peregrines — — a species that in the mid-1960s was on the brink of extinction.

Climate Change and National Parks: A Survival Guide for a Warming World -- Wolverines of the Northern Rockies

If ever there was an enduring symbol of the wildness of the Rocky Mountains, it would be the wolverine. While wolves and grizzly bears usually come to mind when talk turns to the Rockies’ animals that conjure images of the wild, the diminutive wolverine possesses a legendary reputation for toughness, resilience, and, some would say, cantankerousness.

Climate Change and National Parks: A Survival Guide for a Warming World -- Caribou in Alaska's Parks and Preserves

Caribou have been on the landscape for more than 400,000 years. For roughly the past 12,000 years, they have been hunted by humans — first the paleo-Indians, now the First Nations’ cultures along with many other Alaskans. Resilience to hunting, to weather, and to predators has enabled the caribou to remain an integral part of both the natural landscape and the human culture. The greatest test of their resilience, though, stands to be climate change.

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