For Immediate Release, July 2, 2024

SEATTLE— In response to a petition and litigation by the Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today protected the Mt. Rainier white-tailed ptarmigan as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.

The agency also said it would reconsider protecting the bird’s critical habitat, providing hope that areas where ptarmigans live may be protected.

“These beautiful winter birds are immediately threatened by our warming world,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center and author of the petition to protect the ptarmigan. “Like a canary in a coal mine, the ptarmigan is telling us that we’re losing the snowpack that keeps Washington’s streams cool and flowing throughout the summer. It’s alarming and we have to protect these birds and the places they live.”

The ptarmigan lives year-round above the tree line in the Cascades from southern British Columbia to Mt. Adams in southwest Washington. In winter, they rely on dry, fluffy snow to bury themselves and stay warm. Climate change is resulting in more rain-on-snow events that create hard crusts unsuitable for the bird. In summer, ptarmigans prefer wet meadows created by melting snowfields and glaciers that are rapidly disappearing.

The tree line is also moving up and threatening to eliminate the bird’s meadows altogether. Ptarmigans are poorly adapted to warm temperatures, showing stress above just 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Center first petitioned for protection of the ptarmigan in 2010. It’s taken the Service 14 years to provide protection, when under the law it should have taken just two years.

“Our world is changing and changing fast,” said Greenwald. “The Service continues to move at a glacial pace to protect species like this highly imperiled bird. The agency desperately needs an overhaul to make sure we don’t lose so many vulnerable plants and animals.”

The smallest bird in the grouse family, white-tailed ptarmigans are one of the few animals that live on alpine mountaintops throughout their entire life. They’re adapted from head to toe to thrive in a frigid climate — from feathered, snowshoe-like talons to their seasonally changing plumage to their remarkable ability to gain body mass during harsh winters. But as hotter temperatures sneak up the mountainsides, pushing tree line — and the ptarmigan — to ever-higher elevations, there may be no more room to rise in the near future.