Tulane University: Global Warming
Storms Global Warming Not For the Birds - 02/08/07
Thomas Sherry hacked his way with a machete through the Bogue Chitto National Wildlife Refuge on the Pearl River last summer, clearing trails of vines and vegetation downed by Hurricane Katrina.
Sherry, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, worked for days and days with graduate student David Brown nearly a year after the storm to get to forest study-sites that he'd set up pre-Katrina.
Sherry studies the ecology of migratory birds. He usually focuses much of his research in Jamaica, and he's particularly interested in the Swainson's warbler, a bird that breeds in Louisiana and the Gulf Coast and winters in the Caribbean.
While some species of birds are coming back strong post-storm, others, especially terrestrial birds such as cardinals and blue jays, have not fared so well. Sherry is collaborating with University of New Orleans scientist Peter Yaukey to study bird population data from before and after Katrina. They are sorting out which bird species recovered quickly and which have been "knocked back" with dramatic declines in populations.
As troubling as the prediction for stepped-up ferocity of hurricanes is to Sherry, the atmospheric circulation models of water and air masses that predict these storms also forecast a drier Caribbean. And a Caribbean with much less rainfall does not bode well for bird populations.
