Each week, we talk with our colleagues at The Colorado Sun about the stories they’re following. This time, co-founder and editor Larry Ryckman joined us to discuss an electric vehicle “cash for clunkers” program and how citizen scientists are helping save adorable wildlife.
The next round of applications for the state EV program launches on Thursday morning, August 24 at 9 a.m. Ryckman told KUNC the program is offering $6,000 in additional rebates to the first 200 people who sign up and are willing to turn in their combustion engine vehicles. The $6,000 can go toward a qualifying new or leased electric or plug-in hybrid vehicle. Another option on offer is a $4,000 credit toward the purchase of a used electric vehicle.
“If you don't get in on the first round, state officials hope to expand the budget and make more rebates available next year,” Ryckman said. “These programs tend to be very, very popular in Colorado.”
Ryckman said the state’s goal with the program is to promote equity by using an income qualified exchange program to make EVs cheaper for more people while also taking older, higher emissions fossil-fuel run cars off the road. By 2030, Colorado aims to put 930,000 electric vehicles on state roads.
The Sun also recently covered a volunteer-driven research program to conserve the American pika, a relative of the rabbit that lives in alpine areas of the Mountain West and western Canada.
“Pikas are brown and gray critters with large round ears that (Sun Reporter) Olivia (Prentzel) describes as looking like a russet potato,” Ryckman said. “People hiking at high elevations might be able to see them dashing from boulder to boulder. And they're distinguished by their high pitched chirps.”
Pikas live in some of Colorado's most inhospitable climates, at elevations up to 14,000 feet along the treeless slopes of the southern Rockies.
“These little guys work for hundreds of hours across the short summer months to gather grass and wildflowers to last as food and fuel through these harsh alpine winters,” Ryckman said.
But climate change is putting pikas at risk.
“There's less snow to help insulate them, so they're more vulnerable to the bitter cold temperatures at high altitude,” Ryckman said. “The feds have even considered listing pikas for endangered species protection, but they declined because researchers said they didn't have enough data about them.”
Enter Pika Patrollers, a community science initiative with the Colorado Pika Project.
“Volunteers get trained up on how to collect reliable data on pikas and their habitat,” Ryckman told KUNC. “And it not only helps land managers and researchers understand how climate change is impacting these little guys, but also guides them on what can be done, maybe, to protect them.”
The Colorado Pika Project is a partnership between the nonprofit Rocky Mountain Wild and the Denver Zoo.
