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.
“Utah Gull” might have been a better name for this bird. Not only is the California Gull the Utah state bird, it breeds mainly in sizeable colonies on inland lakes in Utah and elsewhere in the Intermountain West and northern Great Plains. Audubon's climate model forecasts contractions and disruptions of suitable climate space in both winter and summer, with the summer situation of considerably greater concern. In winter, California Gulls are resourceful and adaptable scavengers: a few landfills and fish-filled harbors are all they need. The species’ summer distribution, however, is already affected by desertification and diversion—threats that are likely to intensify under most climate-change scenarios.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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