• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
Ex-Fossil Workers Convert Old Oilfields to Solar Farms After ‘Rapid Upskilling’ in Alberta June 29, 2022
London Becomes Biggest City to Sign Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty June 29, 2022
G7 Miss ‘Golden Opportunity’, Walk Back Pledge to Cut International Fossil Finance June 29, 2022
Soaring Fertilizer Prices Could Deliver ‘Silver Lining’ For Emissions, But Farmers Struggle to Limit Use June 26, 2022
BREAKING: UN Nature Summit, the ‘Paris Conference for Biodiversity’, Moves to Montreal in December June 19, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Climate News Network

Birds caught in climate change traps

February 15, 2017
Reading time: 4 minutes
Primary Author: Tim Radford

African jackass penguins are already on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s endangered list. Image: Harvey Barrison via Flickr

African jackass penguins are already on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s endangered list. Image: Harvey Barrison via Flickr

 

Problems created by climate change are a survival threat to bird species from the coast of southern Africa to the desert regions of the US.

LONDON, 15 February, 2017 – Climate change may be about to set a trap for African penguins and send them foraging for food in places that the fish have departed, according to satellite trackers.

And it could multiply fourfold the risk of death from thirst among America’s desert songbirds, says a second team of researchers.

But migratory hawks, the hunter-killers of the avian world, may be able to adapt to the growing mismatch between historic range and potential prey, according to a third study.

Climate change – driven by global warming fuelled by the prodigal combustion of fossil fuels that spill greenhouse gases into the planet’s atmosphere – creates problems for many species.

Habitat destruction pressure

Researchers have repeatedly warned that some birds and reptiles already under pressure from habitat destruction and pollution could face extinction.

This is true even in countries such as the US that pioneered steps to conserve wildlife, and the UK. And those birds that breed in one climate zone and winter in another could face hazards in both regions.

Because of such shifts, juvenile African penguins are now hunting for fish in the wrong places, according to a study in Current Biology journal.

Scientists used satellites to track 54 newly-fledged juveniles from eight colonies of what was once known as the jackass penguin (Spheniscus demersus) in southern Africa.

The young birds did what they had evolved to do: they looked for cool waters with high chlorophyll levels, because that is normally a sign of plankton, and fish that feed on plankton.

“The penguins still move to where the plankton
are abundant, but the fish are no longer there”

But climate change and industrial-scale fishing now mean that fish stocks are depleted, and the young birds are swimming thousands of kilometres toward what biologists call an ecological trap.

The African penguin is already listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature as “endangered”. Now even fewer juveniles are surviving.

“The penguins still move to where the plankton are abundant, but the fish are no longer there,” says Richard Sherley, Leiden Conservation Foundation research fellow at the University of Exeter, UK, who led the study. “In particular, sardines in Namibia have been replaced in the ecosystem by lower energy fish and jellyfish.”

Climate change, which is predicted to increase the number, length and intensity of heatwaves, presents a different kind of challenge for the desert passerines – small perching birds that have adapted to the hottest and driest regions of the southwestern US.

Researchers looked at the link between heat extremes on an hourly basis, the rates at which water evaporates, and at the physiology of small birds – which lose water faster than bigger birds.

They report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that if the world gets another 4°C warmer, potentially lethal conditions could occur four times as frequently as they do now.

This does not promise well for the smallest, the lesser goldfinch, which now faces lethal dehydration on average seven days a year, but could, by the century’s end, risk death from thirst 25 days a year. In extreme conditions, such birds can survive only two hours without water.

The researchers suggest that if the cactus wren, the lesser goldfinch, Albert’s towhee, the curve-billed thrasher and the house finch are to survive in the deserts of Mojave, Sonora and Chihuahua, conservationists need to start thinking about conserving vegetation and sources of open water.

“These estimates suggest that some regions of the desert will be uninhabitable for many species in the future, and that future high temperature events could depopulate whole regions,” says one of the authors, Blair Wolf, professor of biology at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

And the lead researcher, Thomas Albright, assistant professor in the Laboratory for Conservation Biogeography at the University of Nevada, and colleagues have a wider message for everybody who burns coal or uses gasoline.

Coping with climate change

They write:  “This study provides further motivation for limiting the magnitude of climate warming, because there is already evidence that the majority of high temperature extremes are attributable to anthropogenic warming.”

But a third study is a reminder that sometimes it is difficult to make sense of data, especially about migratory birds.

A count of raptors found that the population of red-tailed hawks had fallen at 43% of the usual migratory sites. But a separate count, made in winter, showed that numbers were on the increase at 67% of the usual places, scientists report in the journal of the American Ornithological Society, The Condor.

The inference to be drawn is that the birds are coping with climate change by altering their behaviour.

“The results suggest that red-tailed hawks may be responding to climate change, land use change or other environmental changes by migrating shorter distances or becoming year-round residents,” says the research leader, Neil Paprocki, a conservation biologist at Hawkwatch International. – Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

stux / Pixabay
Air & Marine

Big Seven European Airlines Lag on Reducing Sky-High Emissions: Report

June 13, 2022
75
Ars Electronica/flickr
Solar

Unique ‘Smartflower’ Microgrid to Power Saskatchewan High School

June 13, 2022
154
http://midwestenergynews.com/2013/10/24/as-pipeline-concerns-mount-a-renewed-focus-on-the-great-lakes-enbridge-mackinac-line-5/
Pipelines / Rail Transport

Line 5 Closure Brings Negligible Rise in Gas Prices, Enbridge Consultant Finds

June 10, 2022
206

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Keith Hirsche

Ex-Fossil Workers Convert Old Oilfields to Solar Farms After ‘Rapid Upskilling’ in Alberta

June 29, 2022
392
François GOGLINS/wikimedia commons

Corrosion Problem Shutters Half of France’s Nuclear Reactors

June 29, 2022
223
David/flickr

U.S. Supreme Court Expected to Gut Emission Controls as Climate Scientists Petition for Plan B

June 26, 2022
1.2k
Danielle Scott/flickr

Advocate Urges Ottawa to Intervene Before Ontario Builds Highway 413

June 29, 2022
128
Number 10/flickr

G7 Miss ‘Golden Opportunity’, Walk Back Pledge to Cut International Fossil Finance

June 29, 2022
142
London Eye UK England

London Becomes Biggest City to Sign Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty

June 29, 2022
120

Recent Posts

AJEL / Pixabay

Windfall Tax on Food, Fossil, Pharma Giants Would Raise $490B to Solve ‘Catastrophic’ Food Crisis: Oxfam

June 29, 2022
57
futureatlas.com/flickr

Ottawa Demands Deeper Fuel Emissions Cuts, Offers Fossils a Double-Dip on Tax Breaks

June 29, 2022
77
Province of B.C./flickr

Comox Joins Municipalities Seeking Ban on New Gas Stations

June 29, 2022
75
/Piqsels

Refocus Agriculture Spending to Cut Emissions, Boost Productivity, OECD Urges Governments

June 29, 2022
28
Jimmy Emerson, DVM/flickr

Public Vigilance Key to Protecting Greenbelts for Climate Resilience, Report Finds

June 29, 2022
35
Miguel V/Wikimedia Commons

Forests Fall Short of Full Carbon Storage Potential, Study Finds

June 29, 2022
62
Next Post
Agribusiness is angry that its negative impacts will be highlighted at the Rio carnival in Brazil.

Samba drums up opposition to factory farming

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}