How Climate Change Will Affect Birds in Delaware
Vulnerable Birds in Delaware
Highly and moderately vulnerable birds may lose more than half of their current range—the geographic area where they live—as they are forced to search for suitable habitat and climate conditions elsewhere.
Delaware
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Below, find out which of the birds that nest or spend the winter in your area are most vulnerable across their entire range. Some birds may lose range outside of your state, making the protection of their current habitat in your area even more important.
How will the Virginia Rail's range be affected in Delaware?
Rising temperatures and shifting weather patterns affect birds' ability to find food and reproduce, which over time impacts local populations, and ultimately continent-wide populations, too. Some species may even go extinct in your state if they cannot find the conditions they need to survive and raise their young.
Select a warming scenario to see how this species’ range will change under increased global temperatures.
Reducing warming makes many types of birds found in Delaware less vulnerable.
In order to hold warming steady, we must act now to reduce the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere and limit warming to 1.5 degrees. We must reduce our carbon emissions and also absorb what is produced through natural solutions like reforestation or with technology that removes carbon from the air.
Click the three different warming scenarios to explore how increased warming puts more species in Delaware at risk.
Delaware's Birds and Habitats
Delaware Bay's tidal salt marsh, which stretches across thousands of acres, is an important stopover point for migrating shorebirds and waterfowl. At Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge, see American Oystercatcher and Red Knot; at Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge, see marsh birds like Saltmarsh Sparrow and wintering fowl like Snow Goose and Tundra Swan. Old growth forest at Brandywine Creek State Park is a migration hotspot as well as a breeding site for Ovenbird, Scarlet Tanager, and Baltimore Oriole. In southern pine flats, hear the squeaky song of Brown-headed Nuthatches at the northernmost point of their range.
Climate Policy in Delaware
RENEWABLE
.8 % Biomass
.7 % Solar
FOSSIL FUEL
4.8 % Coal
.3 % Petroleum
OTHER
BELOW 2008
BY 2026
Climate Alliance?
(Data: U.S. EIA)
Delaware offers clean transportation incentives, renewable energy funding, and energy efficiency programs to help homeowners and businesses reduce energy use and lower costs. The state is also planning for the impacts of climate change, including an overarching statewide framework and continual sea-level-rise adaptation.
Delaware is a participant in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cap-and-trade program in the northeastern and mid-Atlantic United States that aims to reduce carbon emissions from power plants.
Climate Threats Facing Birds and People in Delaware
Sea levels off of Delaware’s coast have risen up to four inches since 1956 and could rise another inch in the next 10 years, eroding beaches and wetlands that provide critical habitat for birds and increasing damage from coastal storms.
The same climate change-driven threats that put birds at risk harm people, too. Hover over or tap an area on the map to see specific threats that will affect that area as warming increases.