Climate Change’s Impact on Animals – Is It Helping or Hurting Them?

People aren’t the only ones affected by climate change. So are animals.

Do you know what climate change is? Sometimes it’s called global warming.

It means that the Earth is heating up, which is changing typical weather patterns.

Imagine wrapping a blanket around yourself. You’re comfortable. Not too hot, not too cold. But what would happen if you wrapped several blankets around yourself? That’s what is happening to this planet. Instead of blankets, gases are trapping heat in our atmosphere, causing the planet to warm up and change the weather. Many of the warmest years on record have happened over the past 20 years.

Climate change is mainly caused by human activities, such as driving cars, creating electricity, and cutting down trees in forests. These activities release gases into the atmosphere called greenhouse gases that trap the heat and slowly warm the planet. That causes weather on this planet to change. Temperatures rise. There are more floods. More droughts. Intense wildfires. Some places get too much or too little rain than usual. Likewise, climate change can increase the chances for severe hurricanes and also thunderstorms, which often spawn tornadoes.

Besides people, global warming is also impacting animals in different ways. It’s forcing them to change where they live and at times, eat different food. It is even altering the way they look.

Here are some examples of how global warming is changing the way many animals live:

1.) On the move:

Rising temperatures affect water supplies and vegetation growth. There’s less food and water. Many animals in the wild are being forced to move from their home. They have to find a new home with better living conditions to feed themselves and their family.

According to researchers at the University of Southern California, half of all species are heading north to cooler ground. Moose. Bears. Frogs. Squirrels. Likewise, elephants in Africa are moving across the continent in search of food and water. So are deer in Wyoming. Each year, they continue traveling to higher elevations that offer more food and water.

2.) Breeding:

Rising temperatures are causing animals and other wildlife, including some bird species, to delay breeding or breed earlier, which can expose babies to harsher weather conditions and food shortages. Likewise, green sea turtles are very sensitive to temperature changes throughout their life. The sex of baby turtles is determined by the temperature of the sand in which the eggs are laid. The warmer the sand, the more female turtles are born.

3.) What’s for dinner?

Some animals are forced to change their diet due to rising temperatures. Polar bears are a good example. Since their favorite food is seals, they almost completely rely on sea-ice for hunting. They wait on top of sea ice for seals to come to the surface to breathe and then pull them on land to feed. But the sea ice is melting. To survive, polar bears must now hunt for food on land. They search for small animals like deer fawns and even garbage. Many lose an unhealthy amount of weight in a short period of time.

More than one-third of all animals on earth eat plants. Consider elephants, cows, horses, giraffes and giant pandas, to name just a few. Giant pandas only eat bamboo. Climate change is reducing the amount and types of nutrients in bamboo and other plants, making it harder for these plants to survive.

4.) Extremes:

When it’s really hot (or also really cold) outside, less birds hatch. The ten warmest years on record happened in the past decade, between 2014 and 2023. (2023 was the warmest year ever recorded.)

5.) Shape-shifting:

To help stay cool, some creatures are growing bigger body parts. Scientists say it helps spread the heat across their body so they’re not as hot. Australian parrots have bigger beaks. Bat wings have increased in size. European rabbits have longer ears. Some mice have longer tails. Masked shrews (similar in appearance to mice) have a longer tail and legs. Japanese quails have longer beaks.

6.) Lighter colors:

Do you know why people wear dark-colored clothes in the winter and light-colored clothes in the summer? Dark colors tend to absorb more heat. Lighter colors reflect heat. To better cope with climate change, the colors of some animals and insects around the world are changing to help them cool down. Dragonflies in the U.K. are now lighter with less dark spots on their wings. Tropical bees in Costa Rica are turning more orange than blue. In France, lizards are turning lighter. So are the blue head patches of tiny birds in the country. Even the color of bird feathers is changing. Take birds that live in hot places. Those birds have more white and yellow feathers than blue and black ones.

The fur of some animals naturally changes color with the season to help protect them from predators. But as temperatures rise, snow is melting sooner and shortening the length of winter.

That’s bad news for animals like arctic foxes and long-tailed weasels. Their fur turns white in the winter to blend in with the snow. It helps disguise them from predators. After snow melts, the ground usually appears brown. Since their fur is still white, these animals stand out. They are more visible, more in danger or at risk of being hunted.

The amount of sunlight also triggers the color change of an animal’s fur. But the mismatch between the animal’s color and its environment (the ground, for example) can make a big difference as to whether or not animals in the wild survive.

Unknown Future

Although Mother Nature is helping many animals adapt to global warming, not all will survive.

Take gorillas who are now an endangered species. Did you know that their behaviors and emotions are very similar to humans? They’re also highly intelligent animals. Koko, a female gorilla who lived at the Cincinnati Zoo, was taught sign language to communicate with humans.

Some biologists estimate that 35 percent of animals and plants could become extinct in the wild by 2050 due to global climate change. They won’t have enough food to eat or water to drink due to rising temperatures, causing their species to disappear from the Earth.

Meanwhile, many birds are in trouble.

The Audubon Society, which protects birds and their surroundings, reports that 314 species of birds are at risk because of changing weather patterns caused by global warming. It may not rain as much or become more cold or hot than normal. There may not be four seasons. Summer may be longer, winter shorter. This may cause some types of birds to completely vanish.

Imagine the world without many different types of birds, insects, and wild animals ranging from gorillas and tigers to elephants and monarch butterflies. They could all become extinct because of global warming.

Do you want to help?

You may not think you can slow down global warming but you can! The actions of every single person – including kids – all add up. You and your friends and family can start making a difference today. Click here to find out what you can do to help save the animals and our planet.