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BRITISH BIRDS EXTEND RANGES TO BEAT GLOBAL WARMING |
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| UK: May 21, 1999 | ||
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LONDON - British birds are spreading their wings and extending their range northwards to beat global warming, scientists said.
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In the past 20 years many birds have pushed their northern boundaries by an average of 19 km (12 miles) but their southern limits have remained the same, they said. "This general northward shift took place during a period of climatic warming, which we propose might be casually involved," Chris Thomas and Jack Lennon said in a letter to the science journal Nature. The researchers used breeding atlases to map the northern migration of 101 bird species. "If similar changes take place in response to the much larger climate warming that is predicted for the next 50-100 years, we could expect to see much more serious shifts in species distribution," Thomas added. In a separate report in Nature, scientists from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, predicted that continental birds with a breeding range of less than 100,000 sq km (38,610 sq miles) would become more vulnerable to extinction. Since 1600, 97 of the 108 species that have become extinct have been on islands but 452 of the total 1,111 species that are considered to be threatened are continental, said scientist Lisa Manne. "Historically it has been the case that more extinctions have been on islands and that was the striking part of our findings. History leads us to believe one thing but what we're really finding is something different," said Manne.
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REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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