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.
Nearly any gull will wander into a fast food restaurant parking lot, but this one seems especially prone to such behavior. This human “commensal”—the term for a species that benefits from another without causing it harm or benefit—has increased in number in recent decades, even without the effects of climate change. Audubon’s climate model predicts a less secure future, however, as less than a third of currently suitable climate space in summer is forecast to remain in that condition by century’s end. In a changing climate, robust monitoring is warranted—even for a resourceful and adaptable generalist like the Ring-billed Gull.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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