Chapter 4
Save the Animals
Climate change threatens some of America’s most iconic species.
“Life on earth is profoundly affected by the planet’s climate. Animals, plants, and other living beings around the globe are moving, adapting, and, in some cases, dying as a direct or indirect result of environmental shifts associated with our changing climate.”
— National Academies’ Ecological Impacts of Climate Change
Remember the animals.
They and their habitats are threatened by climate change. Rising temperatures are disrupting ecosystems and threatening to push species that cannot adapt to extinction.
Climate change is already shifting habitat ranges and altering migration patterns. While many species will continue to thrive, some populations may decline and, in some instances, go extinct, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service warned.
One in six animal and plant species could face extinction by 2100 if climate change is not addressed, according to study by Mark Urban, a University of Connecticut ecologist, which was published in the May 1, 2015 issue of Science. “Many species will be able to shift their ranges and keep up with climate change,” he said, “whereas others will not either because their habitat has disappeared or because they can’t reach their habitat anymore.”
It isn’t just the majestic polar bears at risk due to their struggle to survive in melting Arctic sea ice.
“Some of America’s most iconic species — from moose to sandhill cranes to sea turtles — are seeing their homes transformed by rapid climate change,” said Dr. Amanda Staudt, a climate scientist at the National Wildlife Federation, which produced “Wildlife in a Warming World” a report on animals struggling to adapt to the climate crisis.
Arctic ringed seals, for example, are “likely to become endangered in the foreseeable future due to climate change,’’ according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Nearly half of America’s bird species are seriously threatened, including the bald eagle, which could see its current range decrease by nearly 75 percent in the next 65 years, the Audubon Society warned.
“Some of America’s most iconic species…are seeing their homes transformed by rapid climate change.”
“In 2080, the Baltimore Orioles may have to play baseball under a different name,” the Audubon Society said. “That’s because climate change is likely to have altered climatic conditions so drastically, the bird may no longer be able to reside in Maryland.”
Other state birds at risk include brown pelican (Louisiana), California gull (Utah), hermit thrush (Vermont), mountain bluebird (Idaho and Nevada), ruffed grouse (Pennsylvania), purple finch (New Hampshire), and wood thrush (Washington, D.C.).
Some species will be able to adapt to changing habitats by, for example, shifting their range northward or to higher altitudes in order to adjust to rising temperatures, says the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Many types of birds in North America, for example, are already migrating farther north as the temperature warms.
Other animals, however, might not be able to adapt fast enough to keep pace with the rate of climate change. According to “Wildlife Legacy: Climate Change and the Next Generation of Wildlife,” a 2014 report by the National Wildlife Federation, “Future generations of America’s wildlife and our outdoor heritage are already being hurt by climate change, with urgent action needed at all levels to avoid catastrophic changes.’’
For example, “between the increase in winter ticks and the summer heat, moose are having a tough time hanging on in the face of climate change — and future generations of the species are at risk,” the report noted.
In the West, the whitebark pine is threatened with extinction from a combination of factors, including a climate-driven infestation of mountain pine beetles.
The Fish and Wildlife Service, in response to an NRDC petition, determined in 2011 that the whitebark pine faces an “imminent’’ risk of extinction and warrants protection under the Endangered Species Act — the first widely dispersed tree species to be federally recognized as a climate casualty. The high-elevation tree used to be out of the beetles’ reach, but as winter temperatures have increased on average, the insects have been able to move higher in elevation, survive over winter, and even reproduce more quickly. In the Greater Yellowstone area, 80 percent of whitebark pine forests are dead or dying.
“The loss of whitebark pine has the potential to affect its entire ecosystem, as whitebark pine provides food and shelter to all kinds of critters and shades the winter snowpack for later in the spring,’’ said Sylvia Fallon, an NRDC scientist. “In the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, whitebark pine has been an important food source for grizzly bears, providing a high-fat food source that keeps them up high in the mountains — out of harm’s way — in the late summer and fall.”
We must act now, as if the future of fish and wildlife and people hangs in the balance — for indeed, all indications are that it does.
Climate change — including warmer water and reduced water flows due to drought — poses a threat to cold-water fish such as trout and salmon and to state economies that depend on commercial and recreational fishing.
According to “Swimming Upstream: Freshwater Fish in a Warming World,” a 2013 report by the National Wildlife Foundation, “Climate change is creating new stresses on fish, whether brook trout in Appalachia, walleye in the Midwest, Apache trout in the arid Southwest, or salmon in the Pacific Northwest.”
“We must act now, as if the future of fish and wildlife and people hangs in the balance — for indeed, all indications are that it does,’’ says the Fish and Wildlife Service.
From Clean Power: The Case for Carbon Pollution Limits
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