Weather: Are Gamebirds On the Move?
Weather has been hammering our gamebirds. Actually hammering everything, but gamebirds seem a bit more sensitive to these changes. Every time we talk about that, global warming comes up, and…no definitive conclusions reached, even with the help of a good (or at least decent) bourbon.
But on that topic, did you happen to see the study that got a lot of press recently – it showed that animals are moving away from the equator, and higher in altitude, as the Earth warms. Some highlights from a Washington Post article:
> The new analysis reexamined more than 100 previous studies to give a global picture of altitude shifts in 23 groups of plants and animals and latitude shifts in 31 groups.
> …a trend was clear: On average, species migrated uphill 36 feet per decade and moved away from the equator — to cooler, higher latitudes — at 10 miles per decade.
> “The bottom line is the same point we’ve been making for more than a decade,†said Camille Parmesan, an ecologist at the University of Texas at Austin who has documented the northward shift of butterflies in Europe but was not involved in the new study. “There is a very consistent response globally across groups of species. And the rate of this movement is probably accelerating.â€
Butterflies, eh? Hmm. Makes us wonder if this might explain – or help explain – regional gamebird declines like:
> Ruffies at the southern extent of their range, particularly where they can’t go up in altitude (e.g., some parts of southern PA).
> Places where historically gamebirds have been found but for some mystery reason – habitat and hunting pressure remaining roughly consistent – they’re just not there anymore.
And how much does insect-borne disease factor into this? Do tick- and mosquito-carried illnesses, or increased survival of parasites, due to warmer weather factor into gamebird declines in some regions?
These may be rhetorical questions because with the exception of South Dakota and a few other states, gamebirds don’t get much love from game and fish departments…because there are more deer hunters/tree-sitters who buy more licenses, so they get the attention, etc.
Anyhow, any thoughts on this? Maybe Pheasants/Quail Forever and the Ruffed Grouse Society can get on this…someday.
On the Other Hand
Then there’s this study, of the European black grouse, which lives in the Alps. Excerpts:
> The Alps are currently undergoing a significant global change in climatic conditions, with warmer temperatures and drier conditions, especially in winter….
> The optimal weather conditions for the reproduction of the black grouse in the French Alps corresponds to average winter NAO values for the last 30 years, [which means that] the species has adapted to…a warmer and drier climate.
> Neither the numbers of hens nor the breeding indexes have declined during the last 18 years. This absence of decline agrees with community-level studies showing lower-than-expected effects of climate change on alpine birds.
> Their results indicate that “black grouse have until now been able to track climatic trends towards a warmer and drier climate,” and that they “appear to be more threatened by declines in the availability of suitable areas and changes in habitat structure than by direct effects of climate warming on [their] reproduction.”
> Thus, they conclude that their findings demonstrate that “even a highly specialized mountain species can track rapid climate changes without decreasing its productivity, at least within the limits of current climate changes.”
The Final Word?
Guess we’ll have to defer to Will Ferrell:
Category: Black Grouse, Funny!, Global Warming, Pheasants, Quail, Ruffed Grouse
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