This—the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on the Mid-Coast of Texas—is the only winter home of the only wild flock of whooping cranes on the continent. Perhaps it’s no accident the flock chose Texas. Everything about the crane is larger-than-life and stubbornly unique. Its elongated legs and neck make it the tallest bird in North America; it tops its bright white torso with a flamboyant, deep red cap; its call is a cowboy-esque howl that’s more than a tinge mournful.
The flock feasts off of blue crab, fish, clams, insects, and many other forms of life teeming in the productive waters of the Mid-Coast. The region is an ecologically unique transition zone with a combination of fresh and salt wetlands, estuaries, and bay systems. To protect these natural features and the many benefits they provide, key stretches of the Mid-Coast have been set aside as National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs) and Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs).
Yet while everything from the protective islands on the horizon to official park signage suggests this stretch is indeed a refuge—new analysis indicates climate change could bring significant disruption to the whooping crane and other key species on the coast.
The report from the National Wildlife Federation’s Texas Coast and Water Program argues decisive action can and should be taken to better protect the ecosystems of the Mid-Coast from accelerating climate threats. Here we take a look at four key species to illustrate the challenges facing wildlife and their habitats on the shores of a unique, yet changing, coast:
Whooping cranes and sea level rise
Coastal prairies in the Aransas NWR provide habitat for federally listed species such as whooping cranes. From fewer than 20 birds in 1941, the 2019-2020 winter marked more than 500 whooping cranes at Aransas NWR. Projections indicate a higher than global average increase in the relative sea level rise in the Mid-Coast region due to land compaction caused by oil, gas and groundwater extractions.
Rising sea levels and subsequent saltwater intrusion will convert more than 50% of the freshwater wetlands to open water in the region by 2100. In addition, increasing temperatures and decreasing salinity in Mid-Coast estuaries is a threat to young blue crabs—the primary food source for whooping cranes. These combined findings suggest the whooping crane could lose its only wintering home before the end of the century.
Migratory waterfowl and storm surge
Migratory waterfowl in the Mid-Coast are dependent on the marshes of Big Boggy NWR, Guadalupe WMA, and Mad Island WMA. Storm surge will intensify due to the projected increase in sea level rise by the end of the century. Research also suggests that severe storms such as Harvey will become more frequent in the future leading to flooding and erosion of the birding and nesting sites for these waterfowl. Climate change will also lead to new areas becoming susceptible to storm surge including Mad Island WMA, a crucial wetland habitat for wintering waterfowl.
Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles and increasing temperatures
The beach and dune system of Matagorda barrier islands in the Mid-Coast provide nesting grounds for Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles—the smallest sea turtle in the world and an endangered species. Surface temperature plays an important role in determining the sex of hatchlings for Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles. NWF’s analysis indicates the number of days above 95 degrees Farenheit in the region will almost double by the end of this century. Higher temperatures can lead to a low nest success and affect sex ratios with producing only females for these endangered sea turtles.
Southern Flounder and increasing salinity
Southern Flounder is among several commercial and recreational fisheries found in the Mid-Coast’s Guadalupe Bay and Matagorda Bay. Increasing temperatures and declining freshwater inflows from the Guadalupe-San Antonio River basin and Colorado-Lavaca River basin is leading to a decline in salinity for Mid-Coast estuaries and bays with negative consequences for their fish population. A study analyzing the distribution of 150 species across the coast of Texas found a decrease in occupancy probability of Southern Flounder with salinity and sea level rise as primary drivers.
NWF’s study offers a range of policy recommendations that could help combat emerging threats and build resilience across the region. To protect the key species discussed above, the report suggests decision-makers:
- Invest in strategic coastal land acquisitions, expansion, and ecosystem restoration priorities for critical NWRs and WMAs.
- Work with conservation planners, wildlife biologists, and resource managers to protect winter habitat for whooping cranes. This includes creating incentives for private landowners to provide habitat for the protection of vulnerable and endangered species on their land.
- Implement living shoreline techniques and other nature-based solutions to reduce the intrusion of saltwater along the bay and protect wetlands, refuge systems, protected areas, defend against future storms as well as improve water quality.
- Ensure enough freshwater reaches Texas’ bays and estuaries to maintain (or improve) the ecological health of these important ecosystems and the species that thrive in them.
The threats facing these four species illustrate the scale and complexity of climate-related change on the Texas Mid-Coast. To conserve wildlife and habitat in this changing context it is critical that we invest in these treasured ecosystems this decade. Many of us, whooping cranes included, have found a refuge in this big corner of the world—let’s fight to keep it that way for our children.
READ THE REPORTHelp Texas wildlife by supporting NWF’s regional programs like our Texas Coast and Water program.
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The rule undermines protections for these more seasonal wetlands by systematically excluding them from protection. In this rule, the USDA approves the use of old, inaccurately drawn maps that were rejected or discounted for decades due to their inaccuracy. They also allow the use of weather data from a historically dry range of years decades ago, and aerial maps taken at the hottest time of the year. Together, these practices will miss many seasonally flooded wetlands—excluding many seasonal wetlands from Farm Bill wetlands protection and potentially harming habitats for millions of birds.
With well over half of the Northern Great Plains’ “prairie pothole” wetlands already drained, this bad wetlands rule could have devastating effects to the remaining areas in America’s “duck basket,” where the majority of waterfowl nesting occurs and millions of waterbirds stop to feed during migration.
It’s not too late to save this critical wildlife habitat that purifies our water, reduces flooding, recharges aquifers, and provides critical habitat. But we need your help and your voice on this critical issue. Tell the USDA to withdraw the rule that systematically overlooks the presence of seasonal wetlands and the many benefits they provide to local communities and wildlife.
National Wildlife Federation board member David Carruth, an Arkansas resident who has spent the last few weeks assisting in the response to the disastrous Pegasus pipeline spill, will be speaking at a press conference to highlight the dangers of tar sands for wildlife and public health. And David, along with Nebraska Wildlife Federation president Duane Hovorka, will testify at the hearing. adding their voices to the hundreds of attendees telling the State Department to deny the pipeline.
You can watch a live stream of the event here, and I’ll be back with a recap of the hearing later this week so stay tuned. If you haven’t already sent a message to the White House, NOW IS THE TIME! The public comment period closes on Monday, April 22 so tell the President and Secretary Kerry “NO KXL!”
I gathered with thousands of others around Barack Obama’s house on Sunday, urging the President to say no to the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline that would carry millions of barrels of tar sands oil through America’s heartland, including the sensitive sandhill region in Nebraska. President Obama will be deciding whether or not to approve the dirty energy project in the coming months.
Tar sands oil is one of the dirtiest and most energy-intensive forms of oil to produce. Oil companies are digging up pristine habitat in Alberta, Canada that provides habitat for lynx, moose, grizzly bears, and migrating birds. Wildlife advocates joined with ranchers, faith leaders, sportsmen, environmentalists, tribal leaders, and many other Americans across the country to completely encircle the White House, sending a powerful statement to Mr. Obama: We will not back down.
Bill McKibben with 350.org and Tar Sands Action who coordinated the day, recalled the President’s promises to end the tyranny of oil and commit to curbing climate change.
Looking out over a sea of activists wearing orange “Stop the Pipeline” safety vests and waving “No Oil in Our Soil” cornfingers in the air, NWF President and CEO Larry Schweiger spoke to the crowd as well, calling on the President to make the right decision for future generations and the well-being of our planet.
Want to see more? Check out Tar Sands Action’s amazing photos capturing the event!
The Story Behind the Whooping Crane
It’s a chicken! It’s a swan! It’s an ostrich! Actually….it’s a whooping crane. Aside from a couple polar bears, the endangered whooping crane was the only impacted animal seen at the White House. The whooping crane has a lot at stake in whether the Keystone XL pipeline is approved. Although I’m sure the chickens, swans, and ostriches (nice guesses!) of the world don’t like the pipeline either.
The whooping crane (also known as NWF staff member, Sabrina Patel) donned white feathers speckled with oil and a characteristic red featherless patch near its beak. Whooping cranes are one of the most highly endangered birds on the planet–only 74 breeding pairs exist in the core population found near the tar sands in Canada’s boreal forest.
Keystone XL would follow the bird’s migratory route and cross the Platte River in Nebraska where whooping cranes stop to rest and eat on their journey to Canada. An oil spill in the Keystone XL pipeline (experts have predicted that 91 spills will occur in KXL’s lifetime) would harm the whooping crane’s migratory route and put the already endangered bird in even greater risk.
Speak up to keep oil out of whooping crane habitat.
In honor of 75 years of conservation and protecting wildlife, the National Wildlife Federation is holding its annual Workday for Wildlife on April 16th at Patuxent Research Center and Refuge in Laurel, Maryland. I was lucky enough to spend a day sneaking a peek at what’s in store for volunteers this weekend.
The origins of both NWF and Patuxent lie in the mastermind of conservation icon J.N. “Ding” Darling. On a crusade for action, Darling helped found NWF in 1936 and was elected its first president, establishing principles and strategies to protect and restore wildlife, reconnect people to nature, and confront pollution and its unforeseen consequences and environmental challenges.
Just a year earlier, as chief of the Bureau of Biological Survey (now the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service). Darling envisioned a research center to study wildlife-habitat relationships and lobbied Congress to establish a national wildlife research center.
Just a hop, skip, and a jump outside our nation’s capital, the USFWS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center on the USGS Patuxent Research Refuge is now 4,700 acres of nature oasis. Home to whooping cranes, diving ducks, screech owls, masked bobwhites, sandhill cranes and other critically endangered wildlife, scientists carefully monitor these breeding stocks to ensure future preservation in the wild.
Though the majority of the land is natural habitat, the landscape still needs active management to create the safest home sweet home for the wildlife, and there’s plenty to be done.
Work to be done
Volunteers will take part in a wide variety of essential restoration activities, such as:
- Removing invasive species (such as wisteria, multiflora rose and others)
- Planting native plants and flowers in wildlife habitat
- Cleaning research pens for cranes and ducks
- Conducting citizen science investigations for bees, frogs, and other species
- Installing conservation trail
Want to join us and lend a hand to give wildlife a better place to live? All are welcome, and you can register here.
Here’s a sneak peak at some of the wildlife you might bump into while getting your hands dirty.