Animals and Climate Change by Katerina Lorenzatos Makris
Change for toads
Veiled in mist, the high-altitude
Monteverde Cloud Forest of Costa Rica once sheltered residents no
bigger than your pinky, with skins an orange Day-Glo hue. Biologist
Marty L. Crump described them as “dazzling jewels on the forest
floor.”*
Researchers working a 30-kilometer square study
area of the Monteverde report that over the past three decades the
forest’s moisture levels have dropped, and that the golden toad,
or Alajuela, along with at least 20 more of its fellow native amphibian
species, has vanished.
World chicken population estimated at 42 billion (Photo - BigStock)
Change for bears
Small suction cups on the bottoms of
their feet provide traction on slippery ice. Their fur is white, for
camouflage. Their skin is black, to absorb warmth.
With weights
pushing a ton, they can grow a several-inch thick layer of fat in the
winter—dining on everything from berries to walrus—then go
all summer without a bite. They love to play together and often form
close friendships.
Unseasonable melting and shrinking of ice in
the Beaufort Sea off Alaska led the United States Department of the
Interior, under the Administration of Pres. George W. Bush, to list the
polar bear as a threatened species in 2008.
Officials based the
move on evidence that the white giant depends on sea ice for survival,
that the ice is likely to continue disappearing, and that if nothing is
done to slow the process, in a mere 45 years the world’s largest
bear, along with essential features of its habitat, will disappear.
Change for corals
Riots
of color and activity unsurpassed by any sight on earth greet the
snorkeler or scuba diver. Dubbed the “rainforests of the
sea,” coral reefs teem with life in a dazzling variety of forms.
Scientists
for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warn
that this year’s climbing water temperatures could spell death to
massive amounts of corals in the Caribbean, which, in certain areas,
sustained losses as high as 50 percent earlier this decade.
Change for chickens
Their
courtships involve singing and dancing. They form complex social bonds,
and work together to raise young. They use their beaks the way humans
use hands, to manipulate objects and other animals.
Believed to
have descended from colorful jungle fowl, today chickens star as the
world’s top most populous domesticated animal, numbering more
than 24 billion. Their ranks have swelled in recent years to keep pace
with the meat and egg demands of a burgeoning human population.
Partly
in response to the widespread use of small and crowded battery cages,
California passed a law last year requiring that farmed animals
be allowed enough space to lie down, stand up, turn around, and stretch
their limbs.
Cage size notwithstanding, the United Nations
estimates that gases produced by industrial farming of chickens and
other livestock account for 18 percent of the emissions that raise
global temperatures—surpassing those released by cars, buses, and
airplanes combined.
Change for humans
Off the
shores of a picturesque archipelago, before an audience of corals and
tropical fishes, the leader of a tiny island nation and some dozen of
his cabinet members swapped business suits for wetsuits to assemble at
tables on the floor of the Indian Ocean last October.
The group
breathed through scuba gear, communicated with hand signals, and signed
a document calling for the worlds’ nations to reduce the carbon
emissions that are believed to be warming the atmosphere to record
levels.
President Mohamed Nasheed staged the unique event to
spotlight his worry that without significant global policy changes, the
Maldives, perched an average of just seven feet above sea
level—the planet’s lowest-lying country—runs the risk
of being submerged by waters from melting polar ice within a century.
Causes, cures, and Copenhagen
What is creating these effects on animals and habitats, and what can be done about it?
To
discuss those questions and devise policy to address them, thousands of
delegates and concerned individuals from around the globe gathered at
the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen last fall.
On this page in the months to come, AnimalBeat will explore the interplay between animals and climate change.
*Quote from biologist Marty L. Crump, adjunct professor of biology, Northern Arizona University, In Search of the Golden Frog.
Katerina Lorenzatos Makris is
the author of 17 novels for publishers including Avon, E.P. Dutton, and
Simon & Schuster, and hundreds of articles for publications such as
National Geographic Traveler, San Francisco Chronicle, and Veggie Life.
She wrote a teleplay for CBS and short fiction for The Bark magazine.
With coauthor Shelley Frost, she wrote Your Adopted Dog (The
Lyons Press). Holding a B.A. in Environmental Science Studies and a
lifelong interest in animal issues, she spends a lot of her time
battling a severe addiction to dogs.
