Earthjustice today filed another suit against the state to push for protection of the American pika, a small rabbit-like mountain creature that can only live at high elevation.

The pika is slowly being forced into alpine islands in the Sierra Nevada as the climate warms up. The California Fish and Game Commission denied a petition in June to protect the pika under the state Endangered Species Act.

Earthjustice filed the lawsuit today on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity. It was the second lawsuit filed this year over the pika.

Environmentalists in May went to court and won a review of their first pika petition, which had been turned down last year. But the state again refused to list the animal for protection.

The Center for Biological Diversity maintains that the pika's habitat will completely disappear at the end of this century.