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water temperatures. A major new study that appeared in the jour-
nal
Nature
in March 2017, for instance, described catastrophic
bleaching in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Bleaching caused by
spikes in ocean water temperature kills coral reefs, transforming
the normally brilliant colors into a sickly white.
Seabirds are also threatened because of rising sea levels. Fol-
lowing a twenty-year study of large wading birds called Eurasian
oystercatchers, researchers from Australia concluded that the
birds are not able to survive coastal flooding. This, say the re-
searchers, is the reason for declining populations of oystercatch-
ers. “Sea level rise and more frequent flooding are major drivers
of this steep decline in coastal birds,”
61
says scientist Liam Bailey,
who led the research. Because Eurasian oystercatchers live in
an area where flooding is becoming more common, Bailey says
WILDLIFE ESCAPE ROUTES
As earth’s climate continues to heat up, wildlife will either have to adapt to
hotter temperatures or ee to new, cooler habitats farther north. The problem
is that the forests, deserts, mountains, parks, and elds where wildlife species
now live have been fragmented by human development: sprawling cities, large
agriculture operations, and roads—and these are only a few of the hurdles
animals would encounter if they try to migrate. Getting through such a maze of
human development would likely be impossible for wildlife, so scientists have
proposed a solution: the creation of migration corridors, which could serve as
escape routes for migrating wildlife.
These would not be corridors in the literal sense; the idea of clearly de ned
paths for animals to travel on as they head north is unrealistic. Rather, these
corridors could be created through the restoration of forests and other natural
areas in order to form a connection between current habitats and probable
destination sites. According to Georgia Tech ecologist Jenny McGuire, migration
corridors are something that land managers need to be thinking about right
now. She says that wildlife species need “little plant and animal highways,
paths that make it easier to move and disperse over the landscape.”
Quoted in Simone M. Scully, “Habitat Corridors Could Help Save Wildlife from Climate Change,” Business
Insider, June 13, 2016.
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