Each map is a visual guide to where a particular bird species may find the climate conditions it needs to survive in the future. We call this the bird’s “climatic range.”
The colors indicate the season in which the bird may find suitable conditions— blue for winter, yellow for summer (breeding), and green for where they overlap (indicating their presence year-round).
The darker the shaded area, the more likely it is the bird species will find suitable climate conditions to survive there.
The outline of the approximate current range for each season remains fixed in each frame, allowing you to compare how the range will expand, contract, or shift in the future.
The first frame of the animation shows where the bird can find a suitable climate today (based on data from 2000). The next three frames predict where this bird’s suitable climate may shift in the future—one frame each for 2020, 2050, and 2080.
You can play or pause the animation with the orange button in the lower left, or select an individual frame to study by clicking on its year.
Despite its name, this quirky seabird may be more closely related to puffins than to other species that go by the name of “auklet.” Like puffins, the Rhinoceros Auklet nests in colonies, feeds at sea, and is generally a bird of cold oceans. Audubon's climate model forecasts almost no change in the total acreage of climatically suitable wintering grounds. The distribution of suitable climate may migrate considerably, however, with well over half the current range predicted to shift—mainly northward along the coast. While the Rhinoceros Auklet itself is capable of substantial dispersal, the bigger question is whether its pelagic prey (fish, crustaceans, and cephalopods) will be able to adapt.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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