Ten American Species Feeling the Heat from Climate Change

While recent announcements have been made to take the polar bear off the endangered species list in order to drill for oil in Alaska, they are not the only endangered species being targeted by the global community, as well as influenced by global warming.According to America’s Hottest Species, a variety of American wildlife is currently threatened by climate change from a small bird to a coral reef to the world’s largest marine turtle. "Global warming is like a bulldozer shoving species, already on the brink of extinction, perilously closer to the edge of existence," said Leda Huta, executive director of the Endangered Species Coalition which produced the report. "Polar bears, lynx, salmon, coral and many other endangered species are already feeling the heat."

The report includes a number of different species worldwide. The Kaua'i creeper, a bird which is native to Hawaii, is being adversely effected by warming temperatures and conservationists are worried that it's habitat will soon be overrun with mosquitos not native to the land, and because these bugs are not native to the land the birds have no natural resistance to the diseases they carry, such as the Avian malaria. The Elkhorn coral off the coast of Florida and the Caribbean is dropping by 90% as a result of warming waters which causes coral bleaching, as well as causing algae vital to the coral reefs to leave. Coral reefs are one of the world's most threatened organisms, in terms of climate change.

In North America, due to human impacts on the river system, bull trout have now moved to warmer waters and warmer air, which is not conduisive to their survival as they require cold and clean water. The pollutants that have overtaken the river system have adversely effected a number of different species of fish within them. Additionally, the Canadian lynx requires cold and snowy winters in order to compete with the other predators for food, primarily snowshoe hares. However, global warming is pushing the species farther north and its primary source of food may suffer due to its migration and consequentially, increased isolation.

The world's largest and most ancient marine turtle, the leatherback, has seen its population plummet over the past few decades due to a number of different reasons, but climate change poses a new problem. The sex of the leatherback's offspring is temperature-dependent, meaning that warmer temperatures in the nests create females while colder temperatures, males. With warming temperatures, researchers are concerned that male leatherbacks will simply vanish in favor of females and the species soon after.

There are a number of other animals that are being adversely effected and until we can figure out an agreement on greenhouse gas emissions as well as other human processes that effect global warming, it will only get worse. The issue of global warming should become the main priority for countries worldwide, all differences aside, it is their children that will deal with the most negative consequences of human's influence in the years to come.

Source: http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/40778