We are all familiar with the litany of problems that birds face from global climate change. Sea level rise is drowning barrier island nesting colonies. Stronger hurricanes destroy Caribbean wintering grounds. Earlier spring leads to a mismatch between when insects emerge and when birds need bugs for their babies.
Populations that nest at high elevations are shrinking as warming mountaintops are overrun by lower-elevation flora and fauna. The vast tundra habitats where so many migratory birds nest are melting fast. And persistent droughts have parched much nesting habitat in the West.
And now there is a new peril — hundreds of thousands, perhaps many millions, of migrating birds are dropping from the skies in New Mexico, Colorado and surrounding states. Birders are finding them dead, beaks in the ground as if they dropped mid-flight. Others are hopping around emaciated, desperately looking for food. Creekbeds are littered with dead swallows. Flycatchers and warblers dot farmyards and lawns. Climate change, and the massive fires it has wrought on the West Coast, are likely the cause.
Fires are an essential part of creating healthy bird habitats in much of the country, clearing out understory and creating a sunny patchwork of trees, shrubs and wildflowers that supports a wider variety of birds and disrupts the shady dominance of forest canopy. But years of drought and lack of federal investment in forest management have led to hotter fires that kill more trees and easily get out of control.
This year, lightning and careless humans have caused one of the most massive fire seasons ever, burning at least 6 million acres, killing dozens of people, and blanketing the West with unprecedented smoke. As if the loss of life, property and air quality were not enough, the drought and fires may also be causing millions of bird deaths.
One hypothesis for the avian deaths is that birds that normally migrate south along the coast were forced by smoke to re-route without refueling, and ended up starving while searching for a patch of green over unfamiliar terrain. Other possible explanations are the direct effects of smoke inhalation, or starvation caused by the same droughts that are stoking the fires. Most explanations point to climate change.
This is just one more aspect of climate change to worry about; a new way in which the feathered tribe is endangered by our inability to reduce carbon output. It is easy to blame politicians for not doing anything to reverse climate change, but the electorate is to blame — politicians only do what they think will keep them in office. There is no debate among thinking people over whether climate change is real, only whether it’s worth doing something about. This November, vote for the climate and vote for birds.
Dan Cristol teaches in the Biology Department at the College of William and Mary and can be contacted at dacris@wm.edu. To discover local birding opportunities visit williamsburgbirdclub.org.
