According to Conservation International there are four main ways that climate change affect tigers, by rising sea levels, deforestation, temperature changes, and natural disasters (Duran, 2017). Climate change has already negatively impacted and harmed almost half of the endangered mammals around the world (Gruin, 2017). China is the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter, with the United States being the second-largest greenhouse gas emitter (Davenport, 2018).
Sea levels are rising resulting in a reduction of coastal habitat that is forcing the tigers to move to higher elevation into human populated areas, causing more conflicts with people (Defenders of Wildlife Tiger, 2020; Duran, 2017). Mangroves play an important role in keeping coastal regions safe from storm surges and wind damage (WWF Tiger, 2020). Tigers roam in a large mangrove area called Sundarbans in both India and Bangladesh, and this is the only coastal mangrove in the world where tigers are found (WWF Tiger, 2020). About 70% of the habitat is only a few feet above sea level (Gruin, 2017; Schultz and Kumar, 2019). Climate change is bringing rising sea levels that can wipe out these forests, tiger habitat, and all the other species that live there (WWF Tiger, 2020). Rising sea levels are also causing salt water to mix with fresh water which pollutes the tigers drinking water (Duran, 2017). One study by the World Wildlife Fund suggests that without any mitigation efforts sea levels will rise about one foot by 2070 which could destroy the entire tiger habitat in Sundarbans (WWF Tiger, 2020).
Deforestation accelerates climate change and puts species at greater risk of extinction (Duran, 2017). Without a forest habitat to hide in, tigers are more vulnerable to the illegal wildlife trade (Duran, 2017). Between 2000 and 2012 16.5% of tiger habitat in Sumatra was defrosted for palm oil plantations (Luskin, et al., 2017). Logging destroyed 37% of Sumatra's primary forests between 1990 and 2010 (Luskin, et al., 2017). To learn more about deforestation read our Habitat Loss blog post.
Temperature changes are resulting in different plants growing in areas they did not grow before (Durna, 2017). With plant changes prey species have to either adapt or leave resulting in hungry tigers because of prey loss (Duran, 2017). As temperatures increase and the season becomes more dry there is a decrease in water availability, which affects all species not just tigers (Standaert, 2019). One study found that if greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current rate the atmosphere would warm as much as 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels, by the year 2040 (Davenport, 2018; Schultz and Kumar, 2019). Since 1850 human activities have raised the global temperature by 1.8 degrees (Davenport, 2018). This temperature increase would cause significant consequences to food chains, coral reefs, and flood-prone areas (Schultz and Kumar, 2019). Changing temperatures have already posed a considerable hazard to several species around the world (Gruin, 2017). Estimates suggest that temperature increases could cost humans $54 trillion, in taxes or prices on carbon dioxide emissions (Davenport, 2018). If the temperatures increase by 3.6 degrees the monetary cost would increase to $69 trillion dollars (Davenport, 2018).
Natural disasters are just that, natural, however, climate change is making them larger and causing a bigger impact than nature previously has done. Storms are more intense and there is an increase in flooding which destroys crops forcing people to move into tiger habitat to make a living, resulting in more conflicts with tigers (Duran, 2017). There are now bigger and more frequent wildfires and longer, hotter and drier wildfire seasons (Duran, 2017). Climate change is already impacting 82% of key ecological processes that form the foundation of a healthy ecosystem, and wildfires only increase the destruction of the ecosystem that humans rely on (Center for Biological Diversity & Mountain Lion Foundation, 2019; Scheffers et al., 2016). As temperatures increase, humidity decreases which leads to strong, dry winds that occur more often and later in the season when fuel loads are at their highest and fuel moisture is at its lowest (Jennings et al., 2015). Scientists in Canada have conducted studies about the prolonged fire season and warming weather, which have led to 12% more lightning with every 1.8 F temperature increase (Struzik, 2017). This data raises questions as to whether wildfires caused by lightning should be considered to be natural or human-caused.
You can help reduce climate change by using more environmentally friendly products, bike or walk instead of drive, and watch your carbon footprint.
Literature Cited
Center for Biological Diversity, & Mountain Lion Foundation. (2019, June 26). A petition to list
the southern California/ central coast evolutionary significant unit (ESU) of mountain lions as threatened under the California endangered species act (CESA) . Retrieved from https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3-wagtail.biolgicaldiversity.org/documents/CESA_petition_-_Southern_California_Central_Coast_Mountain_Lions.pdf
Conservation International. (2020, July 16). Want to fight climate change? Keep nature intact
Davenport, C. (2018, October 7). Major climate report describes a strong risk of crisis as early
as 2040. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/climate/ipcc-climate -report-2040.html?module=inline
Defenders of Wildlife. (2020). Tigers. https://defenders.org/wildlife/tiger
Duran, L. (2017, July 19). 4 Ways climate change is making life harder for tigers. Conservation
International. https://www.conservation.org/blog/4-ways-climate-change-is-making-life-harder-for-tigers
Gruin, B. (2017, February 16). New study proves climate change’s threat to endangered
species. Earth Day. https://www.earthday.org/new-study-proves-climate-changes-threat-endangered-species/
Jennings, M. K., Lewison, R. L., Vickers, T. W., & Boyce, W. M. (2015). Puma response to
the effects of fire and urbanization . The Journal of Wildlife Management, 80(2). doi: 10.1002/jwmg.1018
Luskin, M.S., Albert, W.R., & Tobler, M.W. (2017, December 5). Sumatran tiger survival
threatened by deforestation despite increasing densities in parks. Nature Communications, 8 (1783). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01656-4.pdf
Scheffers, B. R., De Meester, L., Bridge, T. C. L., Hoffmann, A. A., Pandolfi, J. M., Corlett, R.
T., … Watson, J. E. M. (2016). The broad footprint of climate change from genes to biomes to people. Science, 354(6313).
Schultz, K. & Kumar, H. (2019, May 6). Bengal tigers may not survive climate change. The New
Standaert, M. (2019, November 15). ‘Timebomb’: Fires devastate tiger and elephant habitat in
Struzik, Edward. (2017). Firestorm: how wildfire will shape our future. Washington DC, District
of Columbia: Island Press.
World Wildlife Fund. (2020). Species: Tiger. https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/tiger
Comments