Category Archives: Climate change and the Environment

02/5/12

Good news for endangered California frogs

We were happy to learn that a few days ago the California Fish and Game Commission voted unanimously to designate two species of native yellow legged frogs inhabiting high-elevation lakes in the Sierra Nevada and Southern California mountain ranges as threatened and endangered species under the state’s Endangered Species Act. The commission acted after the Center for Biological Diversity filed a petition outlining the decline.

photo courtesy National Park Service. Department of the Interior

According to the Center, the population of Sierra Yellow legged frogs has decreased by 75% in recent decades. Reading about these frogs, we were struck by how they are a symbol of the challenges that frogs face worldwide. But they aren’t facing one challenge—they seem to be facing almost all of them:

Introduction of nonnative species: Stocking of nonnative trout in high-elevation Sierra lakes has been the main cause of the species’ decline. The trout eat tadpoles and juvenile frogs and alter the food web of the aquatic ecosystems on which the native frogs depend. The Department is recommending no trout stocking in the state without a fish management plan, and no further stocking of trout in areas that would conflict with protecting yellow-legged frogs.

Pesticides: Recent research has linked pesticides that drift from agricultural areas in the Central Valley to declines of native amphibians in the Sierra Nevada. Pesticides and other pollutants can directly kill frogs and also act as environmental stressors that render amphibians more susceptible to diseases, including a chytrid fungus that has recently ravaged many yellow-legged frog populations.

Loss and degradation of habitat: Grazing, logging, water diversions, off-road vehicles and recreational activity are allowed in frog habitat.

Climate change: Climate change has brought warmer temperatures, decreases in runoff, shifts in winter precipitation in the Sierra from snow to rain, and habitat changes that are rendering frog populations more vulnerable to drought-related extinction events.

A recent settlement agreement with the Center for Biological Diversity, which will also speed protection decisions for 756 other species, requires the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2013 to make a decision about whether to add the Sierra frog to the federal endangered list.

See the Center for Biological Diversity for more information about these frogs and about the other endangered species they are working to protect.

10/30/11

What's Really Scary: A World without Bats

It’s almost Halloween and what animal is more associated with this spooky holiday than any other? The answer isn’t frogs, it’s bats.

Unlike frogs, however, which seem to have lots of human friends and supporters, bats have few. Most people find them pretty creepy. They’re associated with vampires and other scary things.

I learned about bats many years ago when I lived in Ohio. When I visited friends’ homes out in the country, bats would often emerge at sunset, and they were quite beautiful, flying up into the sky. I also watched a swarm of bats emerge at sunset from Carlsbad Canyons in New Mexico (see video below), a daily natural spectacle.

Did these bats make a beeline for the humans so they could bite them and suck their blood? No. They ignored us humans completely, focused instead on finding some tastier prey—mosquitoes and other insects.

Unfortunately bats seem to be sharing the fate of frogs and bees—they are vanishing because of a mysterious fungal disease. As Sandra Steingrabber writes in Raising Elijah: Protecting Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis: “The possible contribution of pesticides and climate change to the bats’ malady is a topic of discussion among field biologists—as is the synchronous vanishings of fungal-afflicted honeybees and frogs.”

In 2006 scientists found hundreds of dead bats inside several caves across the country—all had white muzzles, the result of a fungus. Bats with this white-nose disease were subsequently found in 115 different caves from Tennessee to Quebec. The fungus grows on the exposed skin of a hibernating bat and causes the bat to wake up, behave strangely, and burn up its fat reserves, thus starving to death.

The disease has claimed the lives of a million bats across 19 states. More than half of the bat species in the United States are in severe decline or are listed as endangered.

A World Without Bats

So what would the world be like without bats?

Imagine being swarmed by insects and bitten by mosquitoes from head to toe. Imagine pests wiping out agriculture across the country, causing produce prices to go up.

If the decline of bats continues these scary scenarios could be our reality.

We need these spooky, fast-flying mammals that can eat 1,200 insects in an hour, protecting us from the West Nile Virus and other deadly diseases.*

So this Halloween, amid all the Batman and vampire costumes, don’t forget that bats are pretty amazing—and important—animals that need our help. One way you can help bats is to build a bat house. Here’s some information from the National Wildlife Federation.

Here’s a video of Mexican free-tail bats emerging at sunset at Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, to eat their evening meal of millions of insects:


For more information:

From the Incredible Disappearing Bat, Nature Conservancy site.

09/10/11

How Do Hurricanes Affect Wildlife?

After Hurricane Irene, Susan posed the question to me: what happens to wildlife during a hurricane? I decided to try and find out the answer to this.  Because Irene affected such an enormous area—from North Carolina to New England—it’s difficult to generalize. I began with the National Wildlife Federation’s Seven Things to Know about How Hurricanes Affect Wildlife, which I’ve summarized below. Please see the NWF site for more information.

Wind Dislocation

The powerful winds in a hurricane can blow birds off course and push them away from their home habitat. While songbird and woodland birds can cling to branches, and woodpeckers and other cavity nesters ride out the storm inside trees, sea birds and waterfowl are exposed to the high winds.

Other tree dwelling animals are also effected. During Irene, many baby squirrels were orphaned after being blown out of their nests in trees.

Courtesy www.humanesociety.org

Tree Loss

Loss of coastal forests and trees can be devastating to wildlife dependent on the trees for food and habitat. High winds will often strip trees and bushes of food for wildlife: fruits, seeds, and berries.

Dune and Beach Loss

Storm surges, wave action, and winds can cause beach and dune erosion, which has severe effects on species, especially those that live in ecological niches in the sandy areas and dunes of coastal barrier islands.  Sea turtle nests, for example, can be washed out, or a water surge, called a “wash over” that can submerge these nests. Tern and plover nesting areas may also be affected. In some cases, the storm can cause an entire beach area to disappear.

Saltwater Intrusion

The sustained and powerful winds of a hurricane may cause salty ocean water to pile up and surge onshore.  These storm surges can be huge. Hurricane Irene’s surges brought water levels that were as much as 8 feet above normal high tide. In addition to the physical damage this causes, the salt contained in sea water dramatically shifts the delicate balance of freshwater and brackish wetland areas. Creatures and vegetation that are less salt-tolerant may be harmed and many may not survive this influx of sea water.

Freshwater Flooding

Heavy rains generated by hurricanes dump water in coastal area river basins (called watersheds) and this, in turn, can send vast amounts of fresh water surging downstream into coastal bays and estuaries.  This upsets the delicate and finely tuned freshwater/salt water balance that can be so vital for the health of these ecosystems.

Turbidity

Heavy rainfall in upstream areas also washes soil, sediment, and pollutants into coastal and marine environments.  Similarly, sediment can wash over coral reefs, blocking needed sunlight.

Marine and Aquatic Species

Hurricane Irene generated massive waves and violent action on the surface.  When hurricane Andrew hit Louisiana the government estimated that more than 9 million fish were killed offshore.  Similarly an assessment of the effect of that same storm on the Everglades Basin in Florida showed that 182 million fish were killed.

Close to Home

Where I live in Hoboken, New Jersey, many of the city’s residents (including my family) were subject to a mandatory evacuation because of the danger of flooding; in worst case scenarios, possible storm surges were predicted to cause water to rise to the second story of the city’s apartment buildings. While the flooding wasn’t as severe as predicted, we did notice that the water on the sidewalks, in our basements, and backyards smelled toxic. Considering that this water flows into storm drains and eventually into waterways is disturbing. This “witch’s brew,” as it was called in various news reports, consisted of raw and partially treated sewage, chemicals from industrial facilities, bacteria, oil, and gasoline.

This commentary by Jeff Tittel in the New Jersey Newsroom.com about the possibility of this toxic brew being released during hurricanes from New Jersey’s many superfund sites was disturbing:

The New Jersey DEP only has one inspector reviewing institutional controls and caps and ensuring flooding and other impacts do not impact the controls. We have 118 superfund sites, 16,000 contaminated sites, and 7,000 sites that have been remediated, some of which are very complex. There are about 500 toxic sites near our rivers and about 3,500 are located near groundwater sources and 500 near major water supply wells. Flooding and polluted stormwater could result in toxins from these sites entering our waterways.

The other day I heard about a woman in Hoboken who sloshed around in the water in flip flops the day after the hurricane and who now has a serious infection. I could smell this toxic brew right in my own flooded basement and backyard. This can’t be good for wildlife (or for people either).

Hoboken after Hurricane Irene. Photo by Mary Jo Rhodes

How did Hurricane Irene affect the environment and the wildlife in your area?

08/21/11

Why Are Beetles Destroying Western Forests?

Recently Susan visited Colorado for a vacation where she has been many times before to visit family. She always enjoys getting out of the city to experience the beauty of the Rocky Mountains. But this time, she was truly alarmed by the sight of dead trees everywhere. She asked me to look into this and write a post about it.

Dead Trees due to Pine Beetle in Bristish Columbia

Courtesy azimuthproject.org

The culprit is the native mountain pine beetle, an insect about the size of a grain of rice, which has been destroying trees in British Columbia, Canada, and across Colorado and Wyoming.

The mountain pine beetle is a predator of many western pine trees, particularly mature lodgepole pines. It must kill the trees in order to successfully reproduce. The beetle typically kill trees already weakened by disease or old age. But even a healthy tree isn’t able to fight off the beetles when they are at epidemic levels.

The beetles attack pines in late summer, dispersing a chemical signal that attracts other beetles to mass-attack the tree. When the beetles bore through the bark of the tree, they introduce blue-stain fungus, which can work quickly to kill the tree. The beetles form tunnels and lay eggs underneath the bark, which hatch into larvae. The larvae spend the winter underneath the bark and emerge as adults in the summer, beginning the cycle again.

The U.S. Forest Service estimates that by 2012, the majority of lodgepole pines in northern Colorado and southern Wyoming will be killed by the beetle. Extensive beetle kill has resulted in ecosystem-wide impacts such as increased potential for wildfires and some loss of other tree species such as Douglas fir.

What has caused this infestation? It appears that global warming is a major factor in the infestation. The beetle eggs, pupae, and young larvae are the most susceptible to freezing temperatures. According to a British Columbian government site, in the winter, temperatures must consistently be below -35 Celsius to -40 Celsius (-31 to -40 degrees Fahrenheit) for several straight days to kill off large portions of beetle populations. In the early fall or late spring, sustained temperatures of -25 Celsius (-13 degrees Fahrenheit) can freeze mountain pine beetle populations to death.

Amy Nicholas, a  U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist in Rock Springs, Wyoming,  says: “Because of warming temperatures, scientists are now seeing significant beetle impacts even in the high elevation sites occupied by whitebark pine. These sites are usually quite cold and unfavorable for epidemic levels of mountain pine beetle. That no longer seems to be the case.”

In addition to global warming, other factors, such as extended droughts and dense forests, have created a “perfect storm” for the infestation.

Lodgepole pine forests dominate the forested ecosystems of western North America and can provide breeding and foraging habitat for many coniferous wildlife species, including song birds, woodpeckers, and red squirrels.

Research by biologists with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service aims to determine which alternative stand types may best support wildlife species until lodgepole stands can regenerate after the ongoing infestation.

Unfortunately the spread of the beetle and its deadly fungus reminds us at Frogs Are Green of another disease linked to climate change, the chytrid fungus, that is wiping out populations of frog species worldwide.

Most of the information for this post came from a press release issued by U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife, Wyoming: Perfect Storm Fuels Mountain Pine Needle Epidemic