Pika at the plateau

Anyone wandering over the vast uplands of Tibet and Qinghai finds a wonderful variety of colorful flowers and birds and even large mammals such as Tibetan gazelle (goa) and Tibetan wild ass (kyang).  Those who enjoy nature will look and marvel.  They may, however, ignore a small creature resembling a tailless rat which scurries along tiny runways between tufts of grass and dives into a burrow.   But stop now and wait quietly.  Soon a furry-faced head with bright eyes and rounded ears will pop up and peer out.  You are meeting the plateau pika.  Its Tibetan name is abra and its scientific name Ochotona curzoniae.  There are several kinds of pikas in China, but the plateau pika on the rangelands is the most widespread and abundant.  Colored light brown with whitish undersides, its chunky body weighs about 150 grams.  It is a relative of rabbits, not of rats.

 Pikas emerge from their burrows ever alert, dashing back to safety at the slightest disturbance.  But if you remain quiet, some will soon nibble on a grass blade here, a leaf there, and occasionally a flower.  They are intensely social animals, one reason I like to watch them.  Half-grown youngsters chase each other and tumble in play.  An adult is often nearby watching for danger such as hawk or dog.  Animals constantly interact, touching noses in greeting, grooming each other's silky fur, and sometimes rearing up to box with each other.  If a geyser of soil erupts from a burrow, it is a pika
cleaning house or enlarging its home.  A pika's burrow system has four to six entrances, and it is long and complex with tunnels and dead-end side-tunnels. One time I excavated such a burrow to learn how pikas live when out of sight.  Pikas have small alcoves along the tunnels where they deposit their feces and keep their home clean.  One tunnels ends in a chamber filled with hay, a nest where the family sleeps and stays cozy.

When I watch pikas duck in and out of holes, everyone coming and going, their society seems chaotic.  Andrew Smith of Arizona State University and his Chinese colleagues studied the family life of pikas in detail.  Their findings gave me even more empathy with these appealing creatures.  A household consists of father, mother, and youngsters of different ages.  Parents, especially the father, keep a close eye on their offspring.  Older siblings readily mind the younger ones.  It is a family life very similar to that of the Tibetan households with whom pikas share the rangelands.

An even closer look at pikas reveals that they have a critical role in keeping rangelands healthy, that they play a key role in the whole ecological system.  When pikas dig they bring minerals to the surface.  These minerals are essential for good plant growth and they make the vegetation more palatable.  Plants become especially nutritious near burrows and their variety is greater there than elsewhere on the pastures.  The feces that pikas deposit underground and around the burrow entrance provide further nutrients to plants.   Digging also loosens the ground with the result that the moisture content of soil is higher where pikas are active, as research by the Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology has shown, and this too benefits plant growth.  No wonder livestock likes to forage around pika burrows!  Pikas thus have a profound and beneficial effect on plant growth and by extension on the livestock and other herbivores as well as on themselves.  Some species of flies are important pollinators of flowers.  On these wind-blasted uplands such flies often seek shelter in pika burrows, yet another subtle way in which pikas help to sustain the high-altitude pastures.

Many other species depend on pikas for their existence.  Snow finches nest in abandoned burrows, as do lizards.  Every predator, bird and mammal, hunts pikas for its meals.  Hawks and falcons, foxes, weasels, manul cats and others; brown bears dig for them and wolves pounce on them.  Without pikas a whole community of animals would suffer and some might vanish.  Without pikas, wolves would prey more on livestock.  In biological terms, the pika is a  keystone species, one that contributes greatly to the preservation of plants and animals and the functioning of the ecosystem.

Somehow the value of pikas has not been appreciated.  They are generally considered 'pests' which eat the grass that should belong to livestock and cause erosion by their digging.  Actually there is only a moderate amount of competition for forage between pikas and livestock.  Furthermore, pikas eat some poisonous plants that would kill a goat or horse.  Pikas do reach high densities in places, but they do so mainly on pastures that have first been degraded by livestock through overgrazing.  Pikas do not like to live in tall grass and digging is easier for them in eroded terrain.  Rangeland ecologists know that pikas are indicators rather than the cause of degradation.

Perceptions about pikas are generally wrong, yet the animals are being treated as 'pests' and poisoned over large areas.  This has been going on for four decades, yet rangelands continue to deteriorate even where few or no pikas are left.  What is greatly needed is a proper management policy grounded on solid knowledge.

Based on their religious convictions and long-time observations, some households do not like the poisoning campaigns.  After all, pikas and rangelands and people have existed together for several thousand years.  As one herdsman told us: "A rangeland without animals would not be a healthy one."  Lord Buddha stresses reverence and compassion for all life??not excluding pikas.  I did not realize that pikas have such an essential role in the ecological community until I became better acquainted with them. They made me realize yet again that all life is connected, that if you destroy one it will affect many others.  Pikas convey a basic message to humankind: Treasure nature and she will repay you; hurt nature and you will hurt yourself.