I stumbled upon an article that the National Audubon Society recently published a comprehensive report on the condition of bird species in the US and Canada and how climate change poses a significant threat to many local Adirondack species. This is a great short video to provide a background.
The report cited that close to 600 species of birds in North America are at risk including the Ruffed Grouse, the Mallard, Black Duck and Loon. Scientists expect these birds, among many others, to completely abandon their New York Habitat and leave the state as their climatic range shrinks. The Report says that around 300 bird species will lose over half of the range that they inhabit now by 2080 due to climate change. As Ally mentioned in her presentation on Friday, the loon will abandon the Adirondacks because of the drastic climate change to their habitat. In addition, scientists fear that the effects of climate change would completely demolish any progress made toward mollifying the effects that acid rain had on the loon population because it would result in a changing temperature of water.
It's not only important to enact change for the sake of native birds, but also for the other animals that will be subsequently affected. If you take birds out of the equation, the local ecosystem of the Adirondacks will be completely thrown off affecting fish, bugs, and plants.
The Audobon website has a really great interactive map where you can view a map of the changing ranges of particular species spanning from 2000 to the projected data of 2080. This is the data for the Ruffed Grouse.
Ruffed Grouse range in 2000
Projected Ruffed Grouse range in 2080
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