Climate Change Will Disrupt Half of North America’s Bird Species: Study

"The Baltimore oriole will probably no longer live in Maryland, the common loon might leave Minnesota, and the trumpeter swan could be entirely gone.

Those are some of the grim prospects outlined in a report released on Monday by the National Audubon Society, which found that climate change is likely to so alter the bird population of North America that about half of the approximately 650 species will be driven to smaller spaces or forced to find new places to live, feed and breed over the next 65 years. If they do not — and for several dozen it will be very difficult — they could become extinct.

The four Audubon Society scientists who wrote the report projected in it that 21.4 percent of existing bird species studied will lose “more than half of the current climactic range by 2050 without the potential to make up losses by moving to other areas.” An additional 32 percent will be in the same predicament by 2080, they said."

Felicity Barringer reports for the New York Times September 8, 2014.

SEE ALSO:

"More Than Half Of U.S. Bird Species Threatened By Climate Change" (NPR)

"Half of North American Bird Species Threatened By Climate Change" (Los Angeles Times)