Coastal and ocean birds most at risk from climate change, report says

Mercury news , Monday, March 15, 2010
Correspondent : By Paul Rogers
Birds that rely on oceans and live on coastlines are more vulnerable to climate change than birds found in any other habitats in America, according to a report released Thursday by federal biologists and other researchers.

Terns that live on California's beaches — along with murres, auklets, puffins and other species found in offshore areas like the Farallon Islands off San Francisco — face loss of habitat from rising seas, disruption of ocean food supplies and other problems in the decades ahead as the planet continues to warm, the report found.

"There are a significant number of birds that are facing real, immediate threats," said John Fitzpatrick, executive director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. "Climate change clearly is going to affect some more than others."

The "2010 State of the Birds Report," was written by scientists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, National Audubon Society and others organizations that research birds. The full report is posted online at www.stateofthebirds.org.

In it, scientists reviewed data for 800 species nationwide, and ranked their sensitivity to climate change based on factors including how many young they produce each year, how able they are to move to new habitats, and how unique their food and nesting needs are.

The researchers then ranked each as high, medium or low in vulnerability.

Of

the 10 habitat types in the United States, birds that rely on oceans, the Hawaiian Islands and coastal areas had the highest rate of vulnerability. All 67 bird species relying on oceans, for example, including albatrosses, petrels, shearwaters, boobies, tropical terns, tropic birds, frigate birds and puffins, were ranked as high or medium level of vulnerability.

Birds living in arid lands, wetlands and forests had the lowest level of vulnerability.

One reason birds on coasts and islands are considered particularly at risk, the report found, is because rising sea levels are expected to inundate low-lying marshes, beaches and islands.

Birds in the Arctic, such as white-tailed Ptarmigan and rosy-finches, may disappear from mountaintops as alpine tundra diminishes, the report found. Birds that rely on wetlands may well lose nesting and foraging areas in places where droughts become more common. And although birds living in forests can move to other forests, they already are facing increasing forest fires, insects and invasive species, the report found.

"Climate change is having effects on our environment and wildlife," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said at a news conference Thursday. "I see it firsthand as I travel across the country. We have longer and hotter fire seasons, droughts are deeper, floods are more intense, we have more invasive species and changing precipitation patterns."

Data from the National Audubon Society's annual Christmas bird count from the mid-1960s to 2006 shows that 56 percent of the 305 most widespread bird species in America have shifted their ranges north, with the average shift 35 miles north.

To adapt to climate change, the report notes, restored wetlands will need to be designed differently, invasive species battled more aggressively, and coastal development better balanced with beach protection.

"As we protect habitat, we have to be doing it thinking about impacts of climate change," said Melissa Pitkin, a spokeswoman for PRBO Conservation, a nonprofit wildlife research organization in Petaluma. "So if we are restoring salt ponds in San Francisco Bay, we should be sure we are planning with sea level rise in mind. Things are changing rapidly."

 
SOURCE : http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14658937
 


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