Op-Ed: Climate change in Central America — Wildlife struggles to survive
Op-Ed: Climate change in Central America — Wildlife struggles to survive
By Megan Hamilton Mar 11, 2015 in Environment .
Climate change in Central America is affecting wildlife in profound ways, but few places have been as seriously affected as Guatemala's Laguna Del Tigre National Park which suffered a devastating wildfire as the result of an El Niño in 1998.
More than 40 percent of the park was destroyed, meaning that jaguars, tapirs, and peccaries were scrambling to search for areas not touched by the fires. Animals that don't move so fast, like reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates perished, Jeremy Radachowsky LiveScience notes.
The swift change in climatic conditions left park managers and local communities unprepared. They didn't have the things communities need to face such a crisis and without the organizational structures, the technical capacity, or the flexible financing that might have otherwise helped them to cope a little better. It was no easier for the wildlife and arboreal mammals, including monkeys, anteaters and kinkajous died from smoke inhalation. And although birds can fly, they were devastated as well since the wildfires struck smack in the middle of nesting season.
Throughout Central America, the El Niño held sway. Costa Rica's Parque Nacíonal Corcovado, renowned for it's beautiful forests, normally receives seven meters of rain in a year. Not in 1998, however. Instead, the rains stopped for three solid and seemingly unrelenting months.
Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/environment/op-ed-climate-change-in-central-america-wildlife-struggles-to-survive/article/427778#ixzz3UOyx8Hh6
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