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Temperatures are soaring in the Southwest this week –– with highs reaching close to historical records here in New Mexico.

The heat has researchers worried about birds and their health as climate change diminishes food and water supplies for native and migratory species.

To keep cool, birds have a variety of tools at their disposal.

Some urinate on their own legs, others use their beaks to increase or decrease blood flow –– but the most common is a sort of avian "panting." That's where the bird will open its mouth and flutter its neck muscles. But that panting can cause it to lose water and become dehydrated rapidly.

Blair Wolf is a professor at the University of New Mexico's Biology Department. He said while birds can fight the heat, the climate is now warming much too fast for them to adapt through evolution.

"We're not talking about fruit flies here –– where you can get 100 generations in a year," Wolf said. "We're talking about birds that breed once a year."

That has Wolf concerned for bird diversity as world-wide temperatures reach the hottest they've ever been in recorded history, causing dehydration and loss of food sources.

"The birds most susceptible to heat stress are just going to be gone," Wolf said.

Those susceptible birds might include small songbirds like goldfinches, which get dehydrated fast. Or birds like the curve-bill thrasher, which only live in the desert and can't move to cooler places.

Though, Wolf says shade and water are the most crucial aspects of keeping birds in the desert. He recommends helping our avian friends out by simply installing a birdbath or planting shady vegetation as birds struggle to adapt to a hotter world.

  • InevitableSwing [none/use name]
    hexagon
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    For me - starting around mid 2021 the bottom started to fall out and the new normals were a horrorshow...

    • Biden's covid response was clearly going to be purely political.
    • Just like the republican covid point of view - Liberals started normalizing mass death, mass infection, and long covid.
    • The IRA was political. I think from the dem machine perspective - it has almost nothing to do with climate change.
    • Extreme weather events were still shocking. But sometime between then and now they were already becoming normalized just like other horribleness - covid, mass shootings, etc.

    The other day I watched a few minutes of MSNBC about the extreme temperatures and it was vomit inducing. The anchor was the typical stuff to the weatherman like "These temperatures... Can you believe it!" and the weatherman simply recited data about temps with tips about how to stay safe in the heat. And - of course - there was no discussion about how we got here, what could be done, what must be done, what is being done (nothing), and what steps Biden or the dems could take. It was all about coping with the way things are and toughing it out in this scorching heat!

    It was like a Onion video from ~15 years ago made real. It creeped me the fuck out.

      • InevitableSwing [none/use name]
        hexagon
        ·
        1 year ago

        It's all so weird to me. The fucking media has failed since Obama - if not earlier- to do its job on climate change. And now climate change is affecting the US directly in dangerous ways. Yet MSNBC pretends that's not the case. I really wonder what the bosses tell the anchors. Does the news director actually say to them stuff like "When you have to cover extreme weather - be newsy but keep it light and conversational..." Whatever they say - they say it face to face so there's no digital record.

        Lib media is like the America's worst pols. Deniability is key. And it's kind of hard to say you were "misquoted" in a digital record that actually proves you're a fucking ghoul more interested and worried about ratings than growing climate chaos.

        ---

        Maybe ~40 years from now when somebody like Chris Hayes is on this deathbed - they'll spill the beans out of guilt.