350 Reasons We Need to Get to 350ppm: 350 Species Threatened by Global

Warming

A project of the Center for Biological Diversity

www.350.biologicaldiversity.org

Our web project, 350 Reasons We Need to Get to 350ppm, presents 350 animals and plants from across the globe that could vanish due to global warming.

If we can sufficiently curb greenhouse gas pollution, many of them will still have a chance to survive and recover — but we have to act now. And we have to act decisively, with a firm goal of cutting the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere to 350 parts per million.

Here are just some of those species…

Resplendent Quetzal

Range: Central America from southern Mexico to Panama

Drier conditions and prolonged drought due to climate change have been linked to declines in cloud forest plants where the quetzal lives.

(Pharomachrus mocinno)

Quiver tree (Aloe dichotoma)

Quiver tree mortality is much greater on warmer, lower-elevation slopes than on cooler, higher ones.

Range: Southern Africa

Jaguar(Panthera onca)

A hotter, drier climate is pushing this amazing species further northward and out of its historic range.

Range: North from Argentina to the U.S.-Mexico borderlands

Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus)

As CO2 increases, eucalyptus tree leaves produce more “anti-nutrients”, which interfere with the koala’s ability to digest its food.

Range: Coastal regions of eastern and southern Australia

Ashy Storm Petrel(Oceanodroma homochroa)

Sea-level rise threatens to drown petrel nesting habitat in sea caves and on offshore rocks.

Range: Off the coast of central California south to Baja, Mexico

Humphead wrasse (Cheilinus undulatas)

Warming ocean temperatures and ocean acidification are causing massive coral reef die-offs, leaving coral-dependent fish without a home.

Range: Throughout the Indo-Pacific oceans

Sonoran pronghorn antelope (Antilocapra americana sonoriensis)

Increasingly frequent and severe drought leaves pronghorn without enough forage or water. More than 80% of the pronghorn population in Arizona died during a drought in 2002.

Range: Sonoran Desert in northern Mexico and southwestern United States

Adélie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae)

As sea ice off the western Antarctic Peninsula shrinks, so does the Adélie’s food supply: krill. Range: Antarctic coast and Antarctic islands

Bengal Tiger(Panthera tigris tigris)

With fewer than 2,000 individuals remaining in the wild, even modest sea-level rise is expected to destroy and fragment one of the last refuges for tigers, the Sundarbans mangrove ecosystem.

Range: Primarily India and Bangladesh; also Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, and southern Tibet

Cozumel Curassow (Crax rubra griscomi)

Because hurricanes bring the destruction of Cozumel’s forests, a trend toward increasing hurricane activity would significantly increase the curassow’s extinction risk.

Range: Cozumel Island, Mexico

Black Flying Fox(Pteropus alecto)

The black flying fox is suffering mass die-offs during heat waves when bats fall from the trees due to heat stress.

Range: Australia, Papua New Guinea, and Indonesia

Black-breasted puffleg(Eriocnemis nigrivestis)

Found nowhere outside Ecuador, this little bird prefers high-elevation tropical mountain forests which are shifting upslope due to climate change.

Range: Northwestern slopes of Ecuador’s Pichincha volcano, an area less than 34 square kilometers

Polar Bear(Ursus maritimus)

Polar bears are rapidly losing the sea ice they need for hunting seals, breeding, and building dens to rear cubs.

Range: In and around Arctic Ocean

Black-footed albatross(Phoebastria nigripes)

Sea-level rise and higher storm surge due to climate change threaten to drown the nests of the Black-footed albatross.

Range: Breed on Pacific Ocean islands, mainly Northwestern Hawaiian Islands; forage in North Pacific Ocean

Boto (Inia geoffrensis)

As rivers warm, the boto may be unable to find suitable temperature conditions to live in.

Range: Lakes and rivers of northern and central South America, particularly the Amazon and its tributaries

Cassin’s auklet (Ptychoramphus aleuticus)

Increasing ocean temperatures, harsher El Niño events, and ocean acidification threaten the entire food web along Pacific west coast, including the Cassin’s auklet’s.

Range: Pacific Ocean and West Coast from Alaska to Mexico

Chiricahua leopard frog (Rana chiricahuensis)

Chiricahua leopard frogs need permanent water for reproduction, but that will be increasingly hard to come by with global warming drying their habitat.

Range: Desert and mountain streams and wetlands in central and southeast Arizona, southwest New Mexico, and northern Mexico

Human Beings(Homo Sapiens)

Climate change is speeding the spread of infectious diseases; creating conditions that lead to potentially fatal malnutrition and diarrhea; and increasing the frequency and severity of heat waves, floods, and other weather-related disasters.

Arctic Fox(Alopex lagopus)

As temperatures rise, the Arctic fox’s tundra and sea-ice habitat is shrinking, its lemming prey are becoming less abundant, and it faces increased competition and displacement by the northward moving red fox.

Range: Arctic regions of Europe, Asia, North America, Greenland, and Iceland

Blue Spiny Lizard(Sceloporus serrifer)

Warmer temperatures are preventing spiny lizards from searching for food. If climate change continues unabated, 58% of Mexico’s spiny lizard species are projected to go extinct by 2080, including complete loss high-elevation species.

Range: Mexico

O`ahu `elepaio (Chasiempis sandwichensis ibidis)

Rising temperatures are enabling the transmission of pox and malaria at higher elevations, further threatening remaining populations of endangered Hawaiian birds.

Range: O`ahu, Hawaii

Collared pika (Ochotona collaris)

Climate change-related reductions in winter snowpack expose collared pikas, which don’t hibernate, to winter cold extremes.Range: mountains of western Canada and Alaska

Colombian woolly monkey (Lagothrix lugens)

Woolly monkey populations decline after El Niño events which lower food availability for these fruit-eaters. El Niño events are projected to intensify with climate change. Range: Columbia and possibly

Venezuela

False killer whale (Pseudorca crassidens)

False killer whales are at risk from ocean acidification, a result of CO2 emissions that threaten the entire ocean food web.

Range: Rare but widespread; sited in Mediterranean, Red Sea, Atlantic, Pacific, Indian oceans

Emperor Penguin(Aptenodytes forsteri)

Warming ocean temperatures and melting sea ice around Antarctica have diminished the emperor’s food supply, and when sea ice breaks up before the chicks have grown waterproof feathers, chicks can be swept into the ocean to die.

Range: Coastal Antarctica

Green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas)

Range: Worldwide distribution in tropical and subtropical waters

Rising sea levels threaten to inundate turtle nesting beaches; increased sand temperatures can lead to changes in the sex ratio of hatchling turtles; and warming ocean temperatures are damaging coral reefs where turtles feed.

Pineapple coral (Dichocoenia stokesii)

Ocean acidification is already hindering some corals from building their skeletons. At carbon dioxide levels of 450 ppm, scientists project that reef erosion will eclipse the ability of corals to grow, and all corals will start to dissolve at 560 ppm.

Grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis)

Bears that eat lots of whitebark pine nuts before hibernating survive better and have more cubs; however, rising temperatures are shrinking the range of whitebark pine and may make it more susceptible to beetle attacks.Range: Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, possibly southern Colorado, and western Canada

Harp seal (Phoca groenlandica)

The rapid melting of Arctic sea ice threatens the harp seal which needs stable sea ice floes during spring to give birth and nurse their pups.

Range: North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans from northern Russia, to Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada

Staghorn coral (Acropora aculeus)

Corals are suffering from mass bleaching events that lead to death and disease. If climate change continues unabated, most of the world’s corals will be subjected to mass bleaching events at deadly frequencies within 20 years. Range: Indo-West Pacific

Marbled murrelet (Brachyramphus marmoratus)

The murrelet’s forest habitat will be altered by increases in extreme flooding, landslides, and windthrow events, while the murrelet’s marine habitat is at risk due to global warming’s potential to exacerbate harmful algae blooms and marine dead zones. Range: Pacific Coast of North

America from the Aleutian Archipelago and southern Alaska to central California

Mexican gray wolf (Canis lupus bailey)

Mexican wolves are threatened by drought which may lower prey numbers and bring the wolves into greater conflict with the livestock industry.

Range: Arizona and New Mexico

Musk ox (Ovibos moschatus)

Increasing rain-on-snow events create sheets of ice that musk oxen are unable to break through to browse on plants underneath, and as a result, they can starve. In 2003, about 20,000 musk oxen starved to death due to a rain-on-snow event.

Range: Arctic areas of Canada, Greenland, and Alaska

Hawaiian monk seal (Monachus schauinsland)

The Hawaiian monk seal, known to native Hawaiians as ilio-holo-i-ka-uaua or “dog that runs in rough water,” is one of the world’s most endangered marine mammals. Sea-level rise threatens the seal’s pupping beaches on the low-lying Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

Range: Throughout Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, with an increasing population on the main islands

Puerto Rico rock frog (Coquí guajón)

Dramatic population declines of the Puerto Rico rock frog in 1983 were linked to an increased number of extended dry periods.

Range: Puerto Rico

Narwhal (Monodon monoceros)

Decreasing sea-ice cover over the narwhal’s wintering grounds may reduce the availability of its main prey—halibut and cod-- but is increasing the abundance of one of its main predators — the killer whale.

Range: Predominantly in the Atlantic and Russian areas of the Arctic

Pitcher’s thistle (Cirsium pitcher)

Endemic to sand dune ecosystems, the pitcher’s thistle is vulnerable to drought and higher temperatures.

Range: Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin, United States

Okinawa dugong (Dugong dugong)

Increased tropical sea surface temperatures and more frequent and intense tropical cyclones may interfere with the dugong’s feeding, migration, and reproduction.Range: Coastal waters of Okinawa, Japan

Erect-crested penguin(Eudyptes sclateri)

More than half of the world’s 19 penguin species are in danger of extinction. Global warming is one reason krill, the keystone of the Antarctic marine food chain and a main food for penguins, has declined by 80% since the 1970s over large areas of the Southern Ocean.

Range: Breeds only on New Zealand’s Bounty and Antipodes island systems

Puget Sound killer whale (Orcinus orca)

The killer whales of Puget Sound subsist largely on Chinook salmon and climatic changes affecting the health of the cold-water Chinook will have far-reaching consequences for the orcas.

Range: Puget Sound, Juan de Fuca Strait, Haro Strait, and Georgia Strait

Small alpine xenica (Oreixenica latialis latialis)

Increased temperatures and the disappearance of permanent snow cover threaten the alpine habitat the xenica calls home.

Current distribution: Endemic to Australian Alps

Red howler monkey (Alouatta seniculus)

Researchers have found that red howler monkey populations decline during El Niño events which lower food availability and which will likely intensify due to climate change.

Range: Western Amazon Basin of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil

Sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka)

As rivers warm, the survival rate of cold-water salmon is expected to plummet; flooding events in the streams where sockeye spawn could wash eggs from where they’re laid, and prolonged ocean warming could greatly restrict their ocean foraging areas.Range: Pacific Ocean and

coastal streams

Southern corroboree frog (Pseudophryne corroboree)

Corroboree frogs are adapted to the cold conditions of the Australian Alps, and with global warming, winters may no longer be long enough and cold enough for breeding. Range: Restricted area of the

Australian Alps

Steller’s eider (Polysticta stelleri)

Decreasing sea-ice cover has reduced the abundance of this bird’s bottom-dwelling prey and increased prospects for the expansion of bottom trawling and oil exploration in the Bering Sea.

Range: Eastern coastal Russia, Alaska, and the Bering Sea

Spalding’s catchfly (Silene spaldingii)

Climate change exacerbates conditions for the spread of invasive plants and increases the intensity and frequency of fire, all major threats to the Spalding’s catchfly.

Range: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana, United States

Gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus)

Rapid melting of Arctic sea ice appears to be lowering the abundance of the gray whales’ bottom-dwelling prey in their Alaskan feeding grounds, and increasing the numbers of malnourished whales.

Range: Shallow coastal waters of eastern North Pacific from Mexico to Alaska

Leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea)

As ancient as the dinosaurs, leatherbacks now face rising sea levels, increased sand temperatures, and stronger storms which threaten the sandy beaches the turtles use to nest; moreover, warmer nests will produce all females — a few degrees higher, and eggs won‘t hatch at all. Range: All tropical and subtropical

oceans, as far south as the southernmost tip of New Zealand and as far north as the Arctic Circle