Home and Abroad Fire is Threatening Birds and Humans
Written by Andy McCormick
Disrupted migration, burned habitat, and smoky skies are killing birds and threatening their (and our) future.
Within the space of three days I read four news reports and heard two radio reports on the effect of wildfires on bird populations in Washington, other western states, and other countries. My Nextdoor feed had a series of comments from neighbors about the changes in the birds they see at their feeders. The Tweeters list-serve included reports from around Washington on burning habitat. CNN and the BBC reported on Siberia and the Pantanal, respectively. All the reports were distressing. Our changing climate has brought high temperatures this spring and summer and the continued lack of rain has led to an abundance of fuel for raging wildfires. It is a grim reality that requires us to work together to protect our environment.
EASTERN WASHINGTON
Lynda Mapes reports in The Seattle Times that the Pearl Hill fire near Bridgeport and Omak, WA has burned over 200,000 acres of native and restored shrub-steppe habitat required for breeding by the Greater Sage-Grouse. From 2014-2019 Audubon Washington conducted a five-year study of the shrub-steppe habitat in Eastern Washington as part of the long-term conservation effort to protect this dwindling habitat. It will take decades for this sagebrush to regenerate.
Kim Marie Thorburn of the Washington Ornithological Society (WOS) board reported on Tweeters that 33 Sharp-tailed and Greater Sage Grouse leks have burned in Douglas and Okanogan Counties. Wintering habitat for the Sharp-tailed Grouse, especially trees used by them for feeding in winter, have burned. The riparian area in Hardy Canyon is completely burned (Bird Yak).
SOUTHWESTERN STATES
CNN reports of a potential massive bird die-off of birds in the Southwestern United States especially in New Mexico. Martha Desmond of New Mexico State University is quoted as reporting bird deaths numbering in six figures. She postulates that the wildfires may have forced some birds to migrate before they had built up enough fat stores, and some birds migrating from farther north could have been forced to fly inland off their usual coastal route and have not been able to make rest stops and when they do, they cannot find enough to eat. There are reports of birds flying to exhaustion and simply falling to earth and dying.
BRAZIL AND SIBERIA
The Pantanal of Brazil, Paraguay, and Bolivia is a massive floodplain and one of the world’s largest and most important wetland areas. As of September 9, 2020 nearly 10% of the area (about 9,300 square miles) has burned reports NASA Earth Observatory. The Pantanal is home to a tremendous number of birds and other wildlife including some endangered species such as the jaguar. In recent years, the Pantanal has become an important destination for many international birders.
In a video report about forest fires in Siberia Steve Rosenburg of BBC Moscow reports on a series of forest fires that have been smoldering and burning for months. He reports on a vicious cycle of fire, which releases more carbon emissions into the atmosphere, creating higher temperatures and leading to drier forests. He also reports on thermokasts, mounds caused by the thawing of permafrost. As the permafrost thaws more emissions are released in the form of methane, a stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
NATIONAL AUDUBON SOCIETY
How Wildfire Effects Birds on the National Audubon website provides information on how birds respond to fire, how wildfires physically affect birds and their habitat, the benefits of fire for some bird species, and the role of climate change. In a final word in the article one climate scientist for the forest service says that these and future fires will rearrange habitat types and the distribution of bird species.
A LETTER FROM AUSTRALIA
In a “Dear America” letter published in The Guardian Brigid Delaney speaks from the future following raging wildfires during the austral summer of fire during our winter of 2019. Orange skies, air filters, inhaled smoke, photos and videos of wildfires, burned homes and towns, the fear of flames, a lost summer, and climate marches led by children were not enough to get political leaders “to panic and DO SOMETHING about man-made global heating.” She adds, “In our fear and our fury, we too faced the gross insult to our intelligence: politicians and popular press telling us (embers still burning, the fires raging on, joining other fires now) that it’s not man-made climate change that is to blame.” The aftermath she says awaits us is that there will be few policy changes by government.
Amid these worldwide fires our hope is in our work with National Audubon and other organizations to reduce carbon emissions and build a world based on renewable energy sources to preserve our environment for humans and the birds and other wildlife with whom we share this planet. At your home, keep your feeders full and provide water for birds. They need our support for nourishment AND better climate policies.
Photo credit by Curtis Gregory Perry.