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.
The national symbol of the United States is projected to have only 26 percent of its current summer range remaining by 2080, according to Audubon’s climate model. However, it could potentially recover 73 percent of summer range in new areas opened up by a shifting climate. Its success isn’t guaranteed in the new areas—the majestic raptor will still have to find suitable food and nesting habitat.
Are the projected range maps different from the range maps in field guides? Find the answer here.
The country’s most iconic bird is found throughout most of the United States and Canada, and locally south into Mexico. It dines primarily on fish, but will also feed on birds and mammals, and often eats carrion. Highly territorial during the breeding season, it is sociable the rest of the year, often gathering at communal roosting or feeding spots. The raptor has complex migration patterns; some are residents, while immature birds may roam nomadically for years, and adults breeding in the northern interior migrate far south for the winter. Bald Eagles experienced widespread population declines in the 20th century, largely as a result of pesticides and hunting. It rebounded after DDT was outlawed, and the Bald Eagle was removed from the Endangered Species List in 2007.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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