Animal Behavior: Pika

And What We Can Learn From Them

Pikas live in the mountains, small round bodies with oversized ears, and they’re creatures of preparation and persistence.

They don’t hibernate, so they spend summer and fall gathering grasses and wildflowers, creating haypiles that they’ll eat throughout the harsh winter.

It’s solitary work, each pika responsible for their own survival, but they’re not isolated—they live in colonies, burrows close together in the rocky slopes, and they communicate constantly through sharp calls that warn of predators, that announce territory, that say I’m here, I see you.

Climate change is pushing pikas higher and higher up the mountains as temperatures rise, and some populations have disappeared entirely, but the ones that remain keep gathering their hay, keep calling across the rocks, keep persisting.

There’s something deeply moving about that—continuing the work even when the world is changing in ways you didn’t choose, trusting that the effort matters.

You don’t have to have all the answers. You don’t have to solve everything. Sometimes resilience is just showing up, doing the work, trusting that it matters even when the outcome is uncertain.

Stay wild,

Chris