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.
This is the quintessential gull: big and adaptable, lively and successful. Audubon's climate model forecasts a 55 percent loss of current winter range by 2080 and similar losses during the summer. A surprising aspect of the summer projection is withdrawal from the most northerly portions of the range—the opposite of most other birds with high-latitude breeding ranges. Projected potential winter gains are due in large part to expansion northward of suitable climate space for the species. With the right combination of garbage dumps, shopping malls, and coastlines, Herring Gulls may have a better chance at weathering climate change than other species.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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