Skip to main content

Report Shows Need to Protect Bird Habitat While Fighting Climate Change

Support Provided By
goldeneagle
Golden eagles stand to lose 79 percent of their winter range by 2080 | Photo: John Kay/Flickr/Creative Commons License

The National Audubon Society released the results of a seven-year study this week on the future of North American birds in a warming world, and that report is getting a lot of press. According to the report, of 588 species of birds studied, 314 are at risk of extinction due to climate change before the end of the century.

The study, based on data from Audubon's annual Christmas Bird Count and the North American Breeding Bird survey, found that 126 bird species are "climate-endangered": they're expected to lose more than 50 percent of their North American range by 2050 due to a warming climate. In other words, changing climate will make more than 50 percent of those birds' current range unsuitable for their survival. Another 188 "climate-threatened" bird species are projected to lose more than half their current range by 2080, though they may gain new potential range in areas formerly too cold or otherwise inhospitable.

The report underscores the dire future birds face if we don't act now to stem climate change. But it also highlights the main reason climate change threatens birds. A warming world means less habitat for many species of birds, which should give pause to those trying to excuse destruction of remaining habitat in order to combat climate change.

Here's a video explaining the study:

Climate Change and Birds

Audubon emphasizes the importance of protecting habitat as part of our response to climate change, and that continuing habitat destruction poses a threat even to those birds who may not be as sensitive to climate change itself. From the report's FAQ page:

Are birds with ranges that are shown to expand or shift "safe" from climate change? Not necessarily. Our models look at the most fundamental climate needs each species requires for survival; they do not take specifics of habitat into account. A place in a grassland bird's new projected range might have the right mix of temperature and seasonality, but if that place is a major city instead of a grassland, the bird is not going to thrive there

Of California birds examined in the study, many stand to lose more than 90 percent of either their summer or winter ranges in North America by 2080, likely consigning them to extinction. Eared grebes are projected to lose 100 percent of their summer habitat, followed closely by merlins and the nearly ubiquitous California gulls at 98 percent.

The study isn't as accurate when it comes to loss of winter ranges: many migrating birds in North America winter in Mexico and Central America, which area wasn't covered in the study. Still, the black-headed grosbeak is expected to lose 100 percent of its winter range in the U.S., with the Bullock's oriole close behind at 95 percent.

We've developed a reputation here at KCET for covering the impacts of renewable energy development on wildlife. At times, readers will ask whether climate change doesn't mean that habitat would be lost anyway, so that we might as well use that soon-to-be-useless habitat to generate green energy and get off coal.

It's a reasonable question on the surface, but it largely falls apart when you consider an important fact: climate change may make habitat less suitable for wildlife by a range of degrees from "somewhat less useful" to "completely destroyed." If we use the chance that a parcel's habitat value will be lessened by climate change as a reason to pave the area with PV panels, or fill a mountain pass with huge turbines, or (as is happening in the southeastern U.S.) log our remaining forests for "carbon-neutral" fuel for power plants and pellet stoves, that habitat's value may be gone entirely.

In fact, ill-sited renewable energy development may actually make things significantly worse for some species. Consider our reporting on the issue of birds mistaking industrial solar facilities for bodies of water, with fatal injuries a common result. Fill an increasingly dry desert with solar plants, and birds likely to confuse those solar facilities for lakes will have an even worse time of it.

Or consider the golden eagle, one of the birds considered in Audubon's study. Expected to lose 79 percent of its summer range in North America by 2080, the eagle's reduced habitat 65 years from now offers a handy object lesson in how siting renewable energy facilities in the wrong place might actually be the last straw for some species.

Here's a screen shot from the Audubon study, showing the extent and quality of the golden eagle's winter range across the southwestern United States. The eagle's winter range is shown in blue, and the deeper the blue, the better that section of the range is for the eagle's survival.

g-eagle-2000-9-11-14
Golden eagle range, 2000 | Image: National Audubon Society

And here's how Audubon expects the golden eagle's winter range to have changed by 2080:

g-eagle-range-2080-9-11-14
Golden eagle range, 2080 | Image: National Audubon Society

Those readers steeped in the California renewable energy world will likely notice something troubling about the 2080 map right off the bat, but for the other 99 percent of us, let's add a visual aid:

g-eagle-2080-arrow-9-11-14
Golden eagle range, 2080 | Image: National Audubon Society

That arrow points to one of the few remaining bits of even low-quality winter habitat for golden eagles expected to remain in the southern half of California in 2080, according to Audubon's projections.

The eastern edge of that remaining habitat is also a burgeoning center of wind power development.

As Southern California's golden eagles try to find suitable places to spend their winters over the next few warming decades, they will find themselves confronted by perhaps several thousand large wind turbines sidling up to one of the last stretches of marginally adequate wintering habitat.

The Audubon study suggests, in other words, that the wind industry's development corridor in the east Tehachapis and southern Sierra Nevada may well have been put in the worst possible place if Southern California is to have any golden eagles in 66 years.

Climate change may already be doing in Southern California eagles, along with other raptors. As the Orange County Register's Pat Brennan reports, the current drought seems to have sharply cut the supply of rodents and other prey for raptors from eagles to falcons, hawks, and owls.

It would be ironic if those last few golden eagles in SoCal, having barely survived the ravages of climate change, were done in by our attempts to address the problem.

Support Provided By
Read More
Gray industrial towers and stacks rise up from behind the pitched roofs of warehouse buildings against a gray-blue sky, with a row of yellow-gold barrels with black lids lined up in the foreground to the right of a portable toilet.

California Isn't on Track To Meet Its Climate Change Mandates. It's Not Even Close.

According to the annual California Green Innovation Index released by Next 10 last week, California is off track from meeting its climate goals for the year 2030, as well as reaching carbon neutrality by 2045.
A row of cows stands in individual cages along a line of light-colored enclosures, placed along a dirt path under a blue sky dotted with white puffy clouds.

A Battle Is Underway Over California’s Lucrative Dairy Biogas Market

California is considering changes to a program that has incentivized dairy biogas, to transform methane emissions into a source of natural gas. Neighbors are pushing for an end to the subsidies because of its impact on air quality and possible water pollution.
A Black woman with long, black brains wears a black Chicago Bulls windbreaker jacket with red and white stripes as she stands at the top of a short staircase in a housing complex and rests her left hand on the metal railing. She smiles slightly while looking directly at the camera.

Los Angeles County Is Testing AI's Ability To Prevent Homelessness

In order to prevent people from becoming homeless before it happens, Los Angeles County officials are using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to predict who in the county is most likely to lose their housing. They would then step in to help those people with their rent, utility bills, car payments and more so they don't become unhoused.