30-year 'snapshot' of Pacific Northwestern birds shows their surprising resilience
A 30-year "snapshot study" of birds in the Pacific Northwest is showing their surprising resilience in the face of climate change. The project started when School of Biological Sciences Assistant Professor Benjamin Freeman found
a study by Louise Waterhouse detailing birds in the mountains near Vancouver three decades ago. What followed was an ecological scavenger hunt: Freeman revisited each of the old field sites, navigating using his local knowledge and Waterhouse's hand-drawn maps.
Freeman, who grew up in Seattle, mainly studies the ecology of tropical birds—but the discovery of Waterhouse's paper made him curious about research closer to home. The results were surprising: over the last three decades, most of the bird populations in the region were stable and had been increasing in abundance at higher elevations.
The study, "Pacific Northwest birds have shifted their abundances upslope in response to 30 years of warming temperatures," was
published in the journal
Ecology this fall. In addition to lead author Freeman, the team also included Harold Eyster (The Nature Conservancy), Julian Heavyside (University of British Columbia), Daniel Yip (Canadian Wildlife Service), Monica Mather (British Columbia Ministry of Water, Lands and Resource Stewardship), and Waterhouse (British Columbia Ministry of Forests, Coast Area Research).
"It is great news that most birds in the region are resilient, and by doing this work, we can focus on the species that do need help, like the Canada Jay, which is struggling in this region," Freeman says. "Studies like this help us focus resources and effort."
Conducting the fieldwork was a detective game, Freeman says. Each day, he would wake up at four in the morning to locate and visit the research areas—often navigating trails, open forest, and rough terrain on foot.
This area of the Pacific Northwest is punctuated with old-growth stands of trees—sections of forest that have never been logged or altered. "These areas feel like islands," Freeman shares. "They feel ancient and untouched, but even in pristine habitats, birds are still responding to climate change."
By comparing the two "snapshots," the team showed that while temperatures have increased over the last 30 years, most bird populations in the region haven't declined—but they have become more abundant at higher elevations. "It's encouraging," Freeman says. "Thirty years of warming has led to changes, but for the most part, these bird populations are mostly stable or improving."
One reason for this resilience could be the stability that old growth forests provide, and Freeman suggests that conserving wide swaths of mountain habitat might help birds thrive as they continue to adapt, while still supporting populations at lower elevations. The study also helps identify which bird species need additional support, like the Canada Jay—a gray and white bird known for following hikers in pursuit of dropped snacks.
It's just one piece of Freeman's larger research goal—he aims to do this type of snapshot research in many different places to identify general patterns, especially differences in temperate versus tropical environments.
"In the tropics, most bird species are vulnerable, with only a few resilient species. In the Pacific Northwest, we saw the opposite," he says. "A pattern is emerging: temperate zones show more resilience, tropics more vulnerability."
30-year 'snapshot' of Pacific Northwestern birds shows their surprising resilience
France’s largest rewilding project takes root in the Dauphiné Alps
In the foothills of the western Alps in southeastern France, horned alpine ibex roam the limestone cliffs of a smaller mountain range known as the Dauphiné Alps, a region once home to thriving populations of wild horses, bison, roe deer, gray wolves, Eurasian lynx, and four species of vultures. In June of this year, the nonprofit Rewilding Europe announced the landscape as its 11th restoration site, making it France’s largest rewilding project.
The term “rewilding”
emerged in the 1990s, but it’s only in the past decade that the approach has grown in popularity worldwide. Generally, rewilding is a restoration method that prioritizes conserving or reintroducing historically present species, including those wiped out locally, to boost overall biodiversity. For Rewilding Europe, this approach allows nature to flourish in a way that will make ecosystems more resilient to climate change. It also means creating economic opportunities for the people who live in these ecosystems.
“A fixed approach to nature doesn’t really work anymore,” Fabien Quétier, head of landscapes for Rewilding Europe, told Mongabay. He said rewilding is about restoring core ecosystem functions by encouraging the establishment of herbivores to maintain the forests, scavengers to mitigate disease from carcasses, and aquatic mammals like otters and beavers to maintain rivers. The project is currently focusing on ungulates such as wild horses and cattle, historical predators such as wolves and lynx, and vultures.
One of the reasons Rewilding Europe selected the French Alps for rewilding is that the region already had a head start. In the second half of the 20th century, humans started to reintroduce
once-depleted species such as roe deer (
Capreolus capreolus), a popular hunting species; chamois (
Rupicapra rupicapra), a mountain goat; and alpine marmots (
Marmota marmota), a main prey species for golden eagles (
Aquila chrysaetos). Over time, these species attracted the natural comeback of other animals, including keystone species — those that have an outsized role in maintaining ecosystem balance — such as dam-building Eurasian beavers (
Castor fiber) and
gray wolves (
Canis lupus), an apex predator.
The history of human impact on the landscape goes back to the 1700s, when locals cleared much of the forests for agriculture, livestock grazing and firewood. As the Industrial Revolution kicked off in the 1800s, however, people started moving to cities, vacating the land, Quétier said. Decades of natural regeneration followed, with native tree species growing back on their own, and historical predators such as wolves making their way back over the Alps from Italy by the 1990s.
The natural comeback of the region’s wildlife signaled to locals that it was ripe for a dedicated rewilding effort. So, a group of friends decided to nominate the Dauphiné Alps as an official rewilding site in 2019 — France’s first. After a two-year feasibility study, Rewilding Europe designated a director, started raising funds, and officially launched the project earlier this year.
Roughly 60% of the Dauphiné Alps are forested, Raynaud said, and of this, nearly half are public forests. The rest is private property, meaning that for the project to succeed, Raynaud and his team need to collaborate with landowners.
One way they plan to do that is by reintroducing wild horses and cattle, such as Polish konik ponies and Scottish Galloway cows. These herbivores naturally graze the land, keeping plant growth under control, and they also disturb the soil by mixing up nutrients, breaking branches and spreading seeds that will become mature trees several years from now — without the need for humans to directly plant trees.
The Dauphiné Alps are characterized by three main vegetation zones, Quétier said: a lowland altitudinal belt with Mediterranean oaks; a montane belt with beech (genus
Fagus), silver firs (
Abies alba), Scots pine (
Pinus sylvestris) and black pine (
Pinus nigra) that stabilize the slopes; and a subalpine belt with Norway spruce (
Picea abies) and mountain pine (
Pinus uncinata).
Among the region’s most iconic animals is the alpine ibex (
Capra ibex), a wild mountain goat with long, curved horns that was hunted nearly to extinction, save for one small population in Italy. The species was brought back to the Dauphiné Alps in the late 1980s, to Vercors Regional Natural Park. It’s also considered a keystone species, along with the Eurasian lynx (
Lynx lynx), a
locally endangered species that’s no longer present in the Alps but lives in the nearby Chartreuse mountain range. Rewilding France said it wants to reintroduce lynx within the next couple of years. This medium-sized wildcat is a historical predator, keeping populations of small herbivores in check without the need for hunting. That ensures the herbivores don’t wipe out all the tree species that provide good timber.
Eurasian brown bears (
Ursus arctos arctos) are another keystone species that once roamed the French Alps before they were hunted to local extinction in the 1940s. While reintroducing them would help the ecosystem, Rewilding France doesn’t plan to do so because there’s no public support for such a move, Raynaud told Mongabay.
Locals had a similar aversion to the reintroduction of four vulture species in France: the bearded (
Gypaetus barbatus), griffon (
Gyps fulvus), cinereous (
Aegypius monachus) and Egyptian (
Neophron percnopterus) vultures. All are now found across the Dauphiné Alps, thanks to dedicated captive-breeding efforts, where newborn animals are raised in captivity and later released into the wild to rebuild populations.
Vultures now serve as one of the region’s largest tourist attractions, said Gaёl Foilleret, a biologist with the nonprofit
Vautours en Baronnies who isn’t directly involved with Rewilding France. Explaining to people how vultures get rid of carcasses that might otherwise contaminate rivers with bacteria and traces of lead from bullets helps people understand their value, he said. Foilleret recently founded a museum about vultures to further educate locals and visitors.
The project involves more than just wildlife reintroductions, Quétier said. Over the next few years, they plan to restore the natural flows of channelized rivers with gravel beds and vegetation that will soak up excess water during periods of heavy rainfall, to avoid flooding in downstream towns. Meandering rivers that snake through the landscape also help direct more water absorption underground to the water table, an important source of drinking water.
Other benefits of rewilding abound, Raynaud added. Restoring the landscape protects towns from erosion. Fostering pollinators helps crops grow better. And decaying wood hosts species that prey on pests.
The economic benefits of rewilding are just as important, Raynaud and Quétier said; otherwise, it would be difficult to get locals on board. The return of popular game species opens opportunities for controlled hunting, for instance. Meanwhile, timber species offer opportunities to harvest and sell wood. The project’s first rewilding site is a 60-year conservation easement of 500 hectares (about 1,200 acres) of public forest, 25% of which is a no-extraction zone; other areas are still open to extraction. There’s also a market for wild-grown mushrooms, while recreation, such as skiing, can bring in profits for small towns.
France’s largest rewilding project takes root in the Dauphiné Alps
