The American pika is a little cold-loving relative of the rabbit which might be in danger of extinction. The U.S. government is now thinking whether the species should be protected under the Endangered Species Act because of the warmer temperatures that the nation suffers.

Scientists announced on Thursday that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will decide whether the pika needs protection under the act in May. They added that the agency will have to establish if this rabbit species will be labeled as endangered species nine months after the first decision.

Because of the quicker global warming, the pika might be the first species from outside Alaska which will be needing protection. Even the polar bears were labeled as threatened by the global warming last May because their habit was melting away.

Greg Loarie, an attorney for the nonprofit law firm Earthjustice who represented the Center for Biological Diversity in a lawsuit against the Fish and Wildlife Service last year, said in an interview that all the data they have clearly points toward the effects of the global warming, which might cause the species to extinct. Last year, he tried to convince the government to make further investigations on the cause of the species disappearances.

In addition, nobody knows yet how many pikas are left in the United States. The little look-alike-rabbits usually live u in the mountain areas, especially the Rockies, the Sierra Nevada and the Cascades. Biologists stated that more than a third of the pikas which live in the Great Britain Mountains of Nevada and Oregon disappeared in the last century, because of the higher temperatures.

The pikas left can be found at 900 feet farther up the mountains. They can die if they are exposed to overheating, meaning temperatures as low as 26 degrees Celsius for a few hours, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.